Tuesday June 26, 2007

What a wet and rainy day to wake up to! 24 hours really can make a difference. Oh well, we'll get by. After the announcements and weather report, the carpool was formed and loaded. Off to Woodleigh Replicas and Gardens near Burlington, PEI. Along with the host, the mosquitos were waiting for us. But at least the rain stopped. The premise of the grounds is that a WWI veteran, Ernest Johnstone, wanted to bring the some of the fanscinating buildings of England back to his native Prince Edward Island. He found and cleared the land. Finally, after WWII he started to build scaled replicas of various castles and houses of England. Examples of his work are: York Minster Castle, The Tower Of London, Penn Manor House, St Chiles Church, St Paul's Cathedral, and many others. Through research and visits to England, he made the replicas as accurate as possible. Scales ranged from 1:20 on York Minster to 1/3 scale on the Tower of London (big enough to walk around in). It took over fifty years of work to achieve his dream. The grounds were opened to the public in 1958. A gift shop offered many souveiners of the gardens.
As it was close to lunch time, eating versus visiting the next stop was put to vote. The growling stomachs won over the curious. We drove up to North Cape which is the western most tip of PEI. After overwhelming the resturant staff with our masses, we all got seated. After lunch, we spread out and looked over the area. There is an operating lighthouse on the Cape that has been around for well over a hundred years. Also, a working wind generator farm is on the point. The winds coming from three different bodies of water provide more than enough energy to run the farm. The Interpretive Center gave a good accounting of the history of the area and its inhabitants.
Our next stop was the Potato Museum sixty miles down the road in O'Leary. The farmers in the group were kinda salivating over the historical equipment display. The museum had a good presentation on the history of the development of the potato and how it was introduced to the different continents. Unfortuneatly, the display also talked about the various deseases that have plaqued the potato industry. I for one will take a closer look at potato chips in the future.
This ended the activites for the day. Some drove back to the campground while others went shopping at local shops. An on-our-own day is in store for us tomorrow.