Teacher Summers: PEI so fly

Editor's Note: My travel companions feel some information has been left out and their PEI experience has not been accurately reflected. Their requested additions are included below in blue. My snarky comments to their reactions continue to be in red.

Friday we drove from Halifax to Prince Edward Island. It was about a three and a half hour drive and we got to use that bridge we had heard so much about!* PEI is an additional country point beyond Canada. I am still unsure exactly why it is and, say, Newfoundland is not but I don't make the points, I just count them.

Facts we have learned:

It is beautiful here.

PEI grows 25% of Canada's potatoes and probably all of the world's mussels.**

People love "Anne of Green Gables" and you can visit the house that inspired it all.

L.M. Montgomery, the author of "Anne of Green Gables," liked to go on walks. This sounds like the Victorian introvert equivalent of "I'll be in my room," "why don't I drive myself and meet you there?," and putting on headphones.

Not only are you getting free entry into Canadian parks for the year of 2017, but you can get tattoos, too.***

This island hosts sandcastle competitions on the reg and they don't play.

Things we did:

Much like I insist on using "walking outdoors" instead of "hiking," today we did not go "cycling" but we did "ride bikes." The ride was excruciating and somewhere between 15 and 50 miles. (It was definitely only 16 but the numbers go up depending on who is telling the story.) We barely survived, particularly the slightly uphill portion. Some (AT) felt they could not go on and were reminded that if they didn't make it to the top they wouldn't be able to see "Hamilton." Miraculously, she persevered. All of this was done during a brutally perfect PEI day with weather in the mid-70s and a constant cool breeze so we never broke a sweat. We did drive what we biked later and it took all of 10 minutes.

We decided we were the least sporty people to do so because we were the only ones biking with a purse.**** Let the record show, however, I had on a crossbody purse. If that's not the sportiest of all purses, I don't know what is.

We took a normal selfie with our super-cool (dorky) helmets on. In this picture, unlike the second half of the trip, AT's helmet is on correctly. After a beach stop, her helmet was on backwards. I would have judged her more harshly except I did the same thing on a motorcycle in Greece once. You can ask Molly.

We took a "look sporty!" selfie and realized we all just looked really mad. We are interested in your tips for being "sporty" since we clearly don't know what that means or looks like. We spent most of our delicious dinner (at The Pearl right outside of Cavendish and it was delish) discussing how sore we would all be in the morning because of our excruciating athletic achievements. This morning we all woke up fine and realized maybe this is something we could do more in our real lives. Being sporty, that is.