A Baseball Championship, an Anniversary and a Hurricane in PEI!

We enjoyed spending time in Charlottetown last year for our anniversary and decided to repeat the trip this year. A surprise bonus was Damian's baseball team won the Provincials and was playing in the Atlantics in...Charlottetown! We decided to go a few days early and cheer his team on.

The weather wasn't great as we headed onto the Island.
 

The flags were flying at half mast in honour of the passing of Queen Elizabeth. 

It was bloody cold!! Team dugout decorated for the weekend...

The sun helped, but when it went behind a cloud, it was cold and windy.

Nadine had warned us about the weather ahead of time, so I threw a blanket in the car. I was wishing I had thrown in my winter coat!

The day of the final game, Nadine bought lots of ribbons in the NB colours. 

Damian at bat...

And New Brunswick won! The last game was close with them winning 2-1 and Damian hitting the winning RBI. We were pretty excited and so happy for him.

Receiving their medals...

Proud grandparents 💕

The ribbons cracked me up!

The moms and grandmoms...the team has great support.

On Monday, as we could only check in to our rental at 4:00, we spent time exploring the countryside. PEI is so pretty.

We met a few of these tractors...the cars could almost pass underneath!

I had read about the Teacup Rock at Thunder Cove, so we decided to go find it. We chose this area as it had easier access to the beach.

But it was quite far from where I assumed the rock was near the cliffs in the distance...

I saw an interesting rock formation in the other direction and went to check it out...

Very cool!

Yeah...it didn't make much sense for me to walk all the way to the cliffs and then have to walk back to our car. So we bailed on this location and drove to a closer one where the descent is a little trickier.

Sorry people! I'm normally a rule follower, but the rules were getting between me and my destination, so I followed the other people who were using the path.

Back down to the beach...a cool cave!

If the tide had been lower, I could have walked around this cliff on the beach, but it wasn't meant to be.

Ooh this was looking a little better...

How cool is that!

Some other interesting formations...

That was worth the drive! (Note: the rock is no longer there. 😥 Hurricane Fiona destroyed it several days later.) 

You can see how erosion is slowly eating away the shoreline...

We saw a sign for the provincial park and decided to stop there for a picnic lunch.

This photo is not remarkable by any means, but when I look at it, I have to laugh. The green building on the right contains very nice washrooms. But for some reason, we decided the road was too easy and drove through the campground, where you can see the car in the background. A park employee nearby looked at us curiously. I asked if there were washrooms and she pointed to the building. She said most people use the road though. They were removing fire pits so there were some pretty big holes that we could have driven into. I said "You have to love the tourists, right?" And she said "Well, we do...." You could practically hear the word "but" following. 

We enjoyed our picnic lunch (and the washrooms)...

We checked in to the condo where we would be staying for a few days. It was in the same building as the unit we rented last year.

Living room...

Office...

Guest bedroom...

And the master bedroom...

And the same beautiful view that we enjoyed last year...

Selfie alert!

The sunrise the next morning was spectacular and we could see that one cruise ship was already in port.

Followed by another...

And another! Big day! Last year due to Covid, cruise ships were still not sailing into Charlottetown, so this is a welcome change for the city.

I went for a walk...

Between these two ships, there would potentially be 3800 passengers and almost 2000 crew.

This was cute...people were attaching locks to the Love sign. I decided we should get a lock and put it there for our anniversary the next day. Somehow, it was one of those great ideas that I promptly forgot about.

The lovely Beaconsfield House, which was offering tours this year. Sadly, a few days after we left, they were no longer offering tours as they cleaned up from Fiona's damage.

There were double decker bus tours, horse and carriage tours...cruise ships are a big business for the area.

From an opening in the hedge, I could see Government House, the official residence of the Lieutenant Governor of PEI.

As I headed back along the boardwalk, you could see the cruise ships towering over everything on the right.

Beautiful old homes...I hope Fiona was kind to them.

Ooh and the bottle tree! I walked past it last year and this year it had lights on it.

Our 31st anniversary...we were going to the Pilot House for dinner and then to see the play Tell Tale Harbour with Alan Doyle.

The meal was excellent and the play was fun. 

By now we were hearing more about hurricane/post-tropical storm Fiona and were debating whether we should leave a day early before it made land. 

The day started out rainy...

But turned into a lovely sunny day...

Sound up if you'd like to hear how loud the horn is before they sail...and then it silently departed. 

We did notice some boats being taken out of the water in light of the weather warnings.

We went for a drive to North Rustico and drove right onto the beach before retreating. Once again, I'm sure someone was shaking their head at the tourists.

Most of the boats were out of the marina...

We did decide to leave a day early. It was rainy and windy as we left. 

Loved this sign...

I think that pretty much summed up the weather warnings...

It was super windy...

We had heard that the bridge might be closed during Fiona (which it was), so that had cemented our plan to leave early.

Back in NB!

The storm was very severe and 15 days later as I'm writing this, over 5,000 people are still without power on the Island. Mother Nature is powerful!