Monday, December 6, 2010

Our Royal Visit... Jelly fish, red earth and public urination. - Part Two

There is nothing like public urination to upset a 3 year old and there is nothing like an upset 3 year old to upset a Mommy.

This being out very first adventure alone together I had a backup plan for almost anything.  Delayed flight, bad hotel room, extra snacks, special toys, laptop games, movies for the evening.  I had thought of everything except for the one thing I never expected:  That the both of us would be miserable and want to go home.  Murphy's Law says that is exactly what would happen.  Driving along the spectacular North Coast of Prince Edward Island she was screaming and I was livid.  Why is she not excited?  How could she be so upset?  Does she know how much this vacation cost me??

I hit a dead end in a little fishing village, the name of which escapes me and got out of the car to allow her some personal space and call my mom. 'We are coming home tonight!'......no, we can't, I already paid for the hotel - shoot.  At a loss and feeling like this whole adventure was a journey in failure, I look up....


Now I remember why were had made the trip.

Within seconds we were hand in hand exploring this tiny village, admiring the pretty red sand, and forgotten the drama of our accidental car ride to find it.  Before I knew it we were back to smiles on on our way to the kind of beach TV movies are made of on the North shore.
Due to a dangerous surf there was no swimming but there was so much exploring to be done and we made out like bandit with a bag full of shiny shells!!

The next morning brought back the unwelcomed reality of standby travel.  As an airline employee I get great deals but it is limited to space available which can generally be predicted very well with 1 exception: Cancelled flights.
We had prepared to fly home on the evening flight giving us all day to explore but I received a warning at 8 am from a friend telling me that the morning flight had been cancelled which means the evening flight would be full up with no room for us.
PANIC
I can not afford another night in the hotel, I may not have a flight home and I am on an island.


Of course it is 8 am and there is absolutely nothing I can do about it right now soo.....off to the beach!!!  Argyle Shore to be precise.  I had been told many times if I wanted to see a true red beach that this Provincial Park is the place to go and it sure was!  While kinda hard to locate it was the most unique 'beach' I had ever been to, I would have considered it more of cliffs then a beach but someone had the foresight to build a set of stairs.  


 After an exciting romp in the "Red Sea" we climbed back into the mini van and made our way back to the airport to face the standby nightmare.  Would we sleep in the airport tonight?  Drive to the main land?  Bed, borrow and steal enough money to pay for a hotel?
Ahhh, nope.  As luck would have it, just as things can change for the worse it changed for the good and a much larger aircraft was coming in with lots of room on it to take us home.
Phew.


Goodbye beautiful island!








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