'where are you from?'
'philadelphia'
'where are you going?'
'prince edward island'
'what for?'
'just to go and see what it's like'
'that's all?'
'yeah we just wanted to go and see some provinces'
'when are you coming back?'
'tomorrow'
'so you're driving all the way from philadelphia to prince edward island and back in two days just to see what it looks like?'
'yup'
we realized afterwards that it probably did sound like a made up story. but as i said to my cousin, "two idiots like us are the last people they should be worried about letting into their country."
anyway, the easternmost point of america is just as boring looking as you might expect. but i was thrilled by the whole thing, especially by the humor of things such as parking in the easternmost parking spot in the U.S., and taking my easternmost piss ever in the U.S. above is a picture of me at the absolute extreme eastern tip of america. pretty cool stuff, huh?
ironically, only a few miles away we passed a building on the side of the road called the 45th parallel, which made us realize that we were on the 45th parallel, which means we were in the exact middle of the northern hemisphere, equidistant from the north pole and the equator. another small thrill. also, maine foliage is very beautiful.
so i added maine to my states-been-to list, pushing it to 22, and we forged ahead into canada. this marked my first time in the atlantic time zone (GMT -4). we flew through new brunswick and onto prince edward island, arriving at charlottetown, the capital, at 10:30pm, only 1070 miles later. after being awake for 30 something straight hours, i fell asleep approximately 1.3 seconds after my head hit the pillow that night.
getting off the island was interesting for one reason. the only bridge that connects to the mainland is the confederation bridge, which is 8 miles long and only one lane each way. the toll was $40.50 canadian. that's $36.23. 36 fucking dollars to cross a bridge. this just went to prove my point that they can really charge whatever they want for bridge tolls, because what else are you gonna do? especially on prince edward island. it's either load your car onto a ferry for 100 bucks and take forever getting over, or buy a house on PEI and start a new life. when our american cards wouldn't work in the ATMs near the bridge and we didn't have enough cash for the toll, i was relieved to find that some lanes actually have machines that let you pay with a credit card. this led to my declaration that if you need a card machine at the toll booth, the toll is too high.
back on the mainland, we drove into nova scotia for a few minutes to say we'd been there, too. on the way back came the moncton magnetic hill theme park. legend goes that this one little hill has had magical magnetic powers for centuries. and if you park your car at the bottom of it and put in neutral, it will roll backwards up the hill. so we pay 5 canadian bucks to do it, and sure enough, it worked, and we rolled all the way back up the hill. it was cool, but it also left a lot to be desired, somehow.
a side note about the canadian highway system. someone needs to introduce the concept of rest areas to these people. any time you want gas, you get off at the exit, and then have to drive four more miles to find the actual station, which is just in some nearby town. and there may or may not be a sign to guide you there. very frustrating.
to pass the time we decided to learn all the canadian provinces and their capitals. we then came to the conclusion that there are less than 500 people in america that can do this, and we are now two of them. we also listed every country we could name in the world, and came up with 156. on the way back, i wondered if we were the first people to eat in both a canadian and american subway on the same day. probably not.
all in all a great trip. some specs: 2023 miles, 33 hours spent driving, 3 provinces, 7 states. next up: new orleans, with a quick stop in syracuse first.
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