Dy 16 and Day 17 - Prince Edward Island

Day 16

During our morning coffee, we researched on-line what to do today and where we were going tomorrow.  We decided to drive to Greenwich Dunes Provincial Park and take a 2.5 mile walk through the forest, dunes and beach.  The drive was a little under an hour and we saw lots of beautiful PEI farmland.  The walk was very pleasant along a very well-kept trail.  Like most places we've been, the parking lot was very full and lots of people on the trails.  But, it wasn't overcrowded and we had some good exercise with lots of nice scenery.

I didn't realize that the hike was in a Provincial Park.  It costs about $7.50 CN for a day-pass for us to enter the park. Not a problem. Above is the sign at the beginning of the trail.

About 1 mile in, we walked across a marsh on a footpath made of floats.  Here is Laura on the floating path with some of the sand dunes in the background.

A short while later, we came out onto a beautiful beach with the dunes in the background.

We had two more stops on our plans for the day - the "singing sands" at Basin Head and the sea-glass beach at Souris.  This would give us a good loop around the northeast corner of PEI.

Basin Head was a hugely popular place and we lucked out getting a parking spot near the entrance.  There was a lake attached to the ocean by a narrow canal.  People of all ages were jumping into the water, doing flips or cannon-balls.  Laura took this video of the craziness - Canal play at Basin Head.

This is the town of Montague.  I thought it was a cool view of the fields and town.

The singing-sands did not equal all the huff or we weren't doing it right.  There is supposed to be something different about the sand particles here that causes noise (singing?) when you scuff your feet.  We couldn't get it to work.

Next we drove to Souris which has a beautiful beach that is supposed to have lots of sea-glass.  We got a little lost around the commercial harbor but found a nice little take-out place for lunch.  Sally's Place was a little hole-in-the-wall but the food was good and prices were low.  I had a fish sandwich (not bad) and Laura had a chicken wrap (good).  While eating I mentioned we had about twice the food as what we bought on the ferry yesterday for the same price.
 
At the beach, Laura went off on her own here while I did a little sight-seeing around the harbor.  There was a Lobster Shack selling lobster of all flavors including a huge lobster roll that I saw a gent leave with.  Wish I had waited a bit for my lunch...

Here is one of the numerous potato fields on the island.  As I mentioned before, PEI grows 25% of all the potato's in Canada. They are all over the place!

I also stopped at a sea-glass shop to look at Laura's competition.  Much of the sea-glass jewelry was very nice and similar to Laura's.  The owner told me she collected most of her sea-glass during the off-season and anyone finding sea-glass with all the tourists around would be lucky.  After Laura came back to the truck, she had found about 40 pieces.  Mostly small chunks but would be good for making her 3-D, shadow-box scenes.

Then we drove back to the campground and arrived around 7pm.  Another long day of sightseeing and I had over 10,000 steps on my phone for the first time in quite a while.

Our new friends Dana and Mourine invited us over for a cocktail and to see their trailer.  It's only 1 foot longer than ours but has a long slide-out down the port side.  What a difference.  Seems like twice the area inside.  The four of us were actually able to sit in the living area with a glass of wine and have a nice conversation.  Can't really do that here facing each other.  Good to know for future reference.

We hit the sack early and I slept well with the help of my buddy ibuprofen....

117 miles today (no towing) = 2,137 total trip miles


Day 17 -

Today was a travel day as we were moving campgrounds.  I would have stayed here at least another day or two except for the barking dog 2 sites down from us.  He woke me up both mornings with barking.  I wasn't happy and let the campground manager know.

Anyway, we had booked a place near New Glasglow (where Anna of Green Gables was written) which was only about 1 1/2 hours away.  But, we planned on stopping at the GMC dealer in Charlottetown because our brakes in the truck were grinding every time I stopped ant it was getting worse.

We first took a walk to the nice Panmure Beach.  It's just a short walk down the road from our campground.  Nice beach with lots of washed-up Arctic Red Jellyfish.  Dana (and someone else) had told us that because of erosion, in just a few thousand years PEI will all wash into the sea.  Looking at this beach, it seems quite possible.

Around 11am we packed up the trailer and headed out.  As happens sometime, Google Maps sent us the wrong way out of the campground because it wasn't sure where we were.  Unfortunately, the direction it sent us was a dead-end by the Permure Lighthouse.  I decided to do a 360 when a side road came up.  As I turned the rig around, I had to go full wheel to stay on the pavement.  The double-axle trailer didn't like this - it's two wheels on each side want to go straight.  I could hear them rubbing on the blacktop road but couldn't do much about it now.  In hindsight, I should have backed the trailer onto the side road to turn around.

Anyway, about 1/4 mile later we heard a loud BANG and a flopping sound.  I stopped the rig in the road because I figured we had a blown tire and didn't want to pull off onto the sand with only one tire working on that side.  I thought we'd sink in.  There was almost no traffic and I turned on my flashers.

Yep.  We'd blown a tire on the trailer.  There was a nice spare and I figured I could change it quickly.  I used the leveling jacks on the trailer to lift that side up after loosening the lug nuts on the blown wheel.  Probably less than 20 minutes later I had the tire changed with the help of a Canadian who stopped and didn't believe me when I told him I was OK.  He actually did help a lot and I was grateful.

I could tell the spare tire was low on air so took it easy for about 20 miles to the next Irving gas station where I could bring it up to 50 PSI.

Now on to the GMC dealer in Charlottetown where I pulled the rig into their parking lot.  The service manager told me they were crazy busy because tomorrow was a holiday on the island - Gold Cup day.  When I asked what the Gold Cup was he looked astonished that someone on PEI wouldn't know this.  Apparently, PEI has the oldest harness racing track in the world and their annual celebration of this is the Gold Cup.  There are parades and, of course, the Gold Cup race.

Oh boy.  This was not going well.  But, I hadn't been on PEI long enough to get to know the people well.  It seems they will go out of their way to help someone with a problem (i.e. the guy who stopped and helped me change the tire.).  He called across the street to their "Express" shop and the woman (Barb) said she would try to squeeze me in.

I drove the rig over to the Express building and she told me to just drop the trailer in the parking log and she'd try to fit me in.  She did get the truck in for checking out and they found the front brakes were almost non-existent.  Here's the poor truck in the truck hospital.

After calling the parts department and finding they had the rotors and pads, she also had the gent start work on the brakes.

Meanwhile, I walked back to the GMC dealer to see if they had a new tire for the trailer.  They did not but directed me to an RV dealer just a few blocks away.  I started to walk down to the RV place and the parts guy stopped me.  "I'll get you a ride" he said and wouldn't take no for an answer.  They drove me over and the driver offered to wait.  I went in to the parts desk and told them the tire size.  The parts manager said the computer didn't show one in stock but he went to check.  I sent the GMC driver back because I didn't know how long this would take.  About 10 minutes later, the parts manager comes back carrying a tire.  I bought the tire and said I was going to call the GMC driver back - he had given me his cell number before leaving.  "Oh no", he said, "I'll get you a ride back".  10 minutes later I'm back at the GMC Express with my new tire.  Barb laughed like crazy when I walked in with the blown tire and said, "Just a slow leak".  Check out the picture (the new tire is behind it).

She agreed to find someone to put the new tire on the rim and I could hear a lot of laughing.  She came back in wiping her eyes saying, "They said they didn't have a patch big enough..."

Less than 2 hours after pulling into the GMC dealer we pulled back out with new front brakes on the truck and a new spare for the trailer.  $550 for the brake-job and $201 for the tire.  Not bad considering it was Canadian dollars and doesn't really count.

Laura found us a Chinese Buffet for lunch / dinner and the food was excellent.  1/2 hour later we were backing the trailer into a new campsite (for us) at New Glasglow Highlands Campground.  We paid our fee for 2 nights and settled down to relax.  It was a long day.

Here is our new campsite up a little hill in the woods. Very pretty.

One thing I've learned over the years is when there is a problem, always trace it back to the disease, don't just fix the symptom.  Tom told me he had a good mechanic look at the brakes before we left and also had the truck inspected (where they also check the brakes).  I put this together with the seemingly LOTS of brake peddle pressure I needed to stop the rig and came to the conclusion something wasn't working right.  Not knowing towing and trailers before this, I started researching the trailer brake control which is supposed to apply the electric trailer brakes when you hit the brake peddle on the truck.. I found setup instructions on-line which said a light was supposed to come on whenever you applied the brake.  I don't remember ever seeing a light...

I went to the truck and hooked up the trailer wiring.  After starting the engine and pushing on the brake peddle - no light on the trailer brake controller.  I then started checking wiring and got a flashlight to look around under the dash.  After not finding any problems, about 10 minutes I tried again and the light came on!  Hmmm.  I'm going to keep my eye on this - maybe a intermittent wire.  I can't wait to drive the rig again and see if I can stop now.

Laura's RV Tip - We've been scheduling 2-days in each campground so we have a day for sightseeing before moving on.  When the sight-seeing days are long (like our last 2 days) it would be good to have a 3rd day in the campground for relaxing.

Bill's RV Tip - Last Spring, I finally got tired of trying to manage my phone gigabyte usage month-by-month and upgraded to AT&T unlimited data plan for both our phones.  It was only about $30 a month more and I've found it to be well worth it.  For example, on the unlimited plan there is no charge for roaming in Canada or Mexico.  All you have to do is turn on roaming and you have unlimited phone, text and data in all of Canada.

78 miles today (all towing) = 2,215 total trip miles