Monday, July 5, 2010

off on the road again

yesterday was a hot and sunny day, so we headed off for Prince Edward Island National Park to soak up some sun at the beautiful Brackley Beach. at least I did, anyway. my poor boyfriend with scandinavian genes spent his time hiding from the sun trying not to get burned.



it was a beautiful beach, very different from the west coast ones that i have grown used to. it was a white sands beach, instead of the usual red dirt, but there where these magnificent grassy dunes everywhere, and boardwalks set up to lead you through them. it reminded me a bit of Zandvoort on the North Sea in Holland, but this time the beach wasn't empty, but instead full of families and teens and children. and jellyfish, unfortunately, lots of jellyfish. the water was so full of them, i couldn't swim very long. the only people staying in the water were children who made a game of trying to poke the jellyfish with a stick while avoiding getting stung. they were much braver than i.

we drove through the rest of the national park which is full of shoreline beaches and quiet lakes, but not a lot of trees, in contrast to Ontario parks. for lunch, rob and i stopped off at the Dunes Gallery, which featured arts and crafts from various PEI artists as well as exotic stuff from all over the world, especially Buddhas. someday, someone can explain to me why non-Buddhists have such a fascination with keeping statues of Buddhas in their house. i mean, i rarely see atheists carrying around crosses or prayer beads. anyway, it was full of neat and interesting stuff, and it made me want to own a house so i could fill it with this stuff.



they also had a cafe in the gallery with an awesome menu of locally-grown meat, gigantic servings of salad, edible flowers, fruity cocktails, and sinful dessert. it was obviously really popular with women. i have this thing against eating flowers, but i really enjoyed my meal anyway, which consisted of PEI turkey burgers and half of Rob's steak and cheese sandwich.