Our Day 6 adventures on Prince Edward Island included a trip to the Island end of the Confederation Bridge. This 8-mile long bridge connects PEI to New Brunswick, and was completed in 1997. It is the world's longest bridge over ice-covered water, and it is very impressive to look at. Before the bridge was built, you had to hop on a ferry to reach Canada's smallest province.
There is a neat information site, with (of course) a gift shop and a lot of other more touristy shops.Folks involved in bridge construction will probably recognize the structure below as a "segment". When building a precast segmental bridge such as the Confederation Bridge, hundreds of these concrete segments are precast off-site and brought to the bridge, then hoisted into place and attached, one by one, until the bridge is complete. You can see by looking at Kate in this photo just how big these segments are.
The kids, of course, don't really give a hoot about bridge segments or tourist shops. All of their attention was drawn to the playground nearby, which was the nicest one we have seen yet in PEI.
When Emily first tried out the playground structure below, I tried to stop her because it looked like it was for bigger kids. But she jumped on and sailed to the ground, then ran up the stairs and did it over and over again. She is truly fearless.
On Day 7 we decided to try a completely new activity that Shannon had recommended. On PEI they have a "College of Piping", which is in fact a school for people to learn how to play bagpipes and do other Celtic-style performing arts (a lot of PEIslanders have an Irish/English/Scottish heritage).
Every weekday they put on several shows that are only 1/2 hour long, where the students practice performing their particular specialty. Shannon thought our kids might enjoy it, and she was right!
...and Highland Dancers....
....and Celtic drummers too.
The kids thought it was fantastic!
The best performer of all was a 16-year old boy doing Irish Step Dancing. This video clip is very short, but it sort of captures his dancing and Kate's appreciation of it.
Then we decided to drive out to the beach at the MacCallums Point lighthouse, which Chris and Brenda had visited on one of our bike rides. Nana and the kids hadn't seen it yet.
The kids, of course, don't really give a hoot about bridge segments or tourist shops. All of their attention was drawn to the playground nearby, which was the nicest one we have seen yet in PEI.
When Emily first tried out the playground structure below, I tried to stop her because it looked like it was for bigger kids. But she jumped on and sailed to the ground, then ran up the stairs and did it over and over again. She is truly fearless.
On Day 7 we decided to try a completely new activity that Shannon had recommended. On PEI they have a "College of Piping", which is in fact a school for people to learn how to play bagpipes and do other Celtic-style performing arts (a lot of PEIslanders have an Irish/English/Scottish heritage).
Every weekday they put on several shows that are only 1/2 hour long, where the students practice performing their particular specialty. Shannon thought our kids might enjoy it, and she was right!There were bagpipers, of course....
...and Highland Dancers....
....and Celtic drummers too.
The kids thought it was fantastic!
The best performer of all was a 16-year old boy doing Irish Step Dancing. This video clip is very short, but it sort of captures his dancing and Kate's appreciation of it.After the show we went for our obligatory ice cream.
Then we decided to drive out to the beach at the MacCallums Point lighthouse, which Chris and Brenda had visited on one of our bike rides. Nana and the kids hadn't seen it yet.Unfortunately, it was high tide when we got there, so the access to the lighthouse was closed. It was still pretty though.
Emily did some scrambling around on the rock jetty. We kind of had to stop ourselves from stopping her, because it looked dangerous even though the water was very shallow. This was one of those times as parents where you just cross your fingers and let them learn. She had a great time, gained a lot of confidence, and didn't fall off any rocks!
Another (somewhat) adventurous day. Our big trip to PEI is almost over, and there are still a lot of things we haven't seen and done up here. Guess we'll have to come back next year!
Emily did some scrambling around on the rock jetty. We kind of had to stop ourselves from stopping her, because it looked dangerous even though the water was very shallow. This was one of those times as parents where you just cross your fingers and let them learn. She had a great time, gained a lot of confidence, and didn't fall off any rocks!
Another (somewhat) adventurous day. Our big trip to PEI is almost over, and there are still a lot of things we haven't seen and done up here. Guess we'll have to come back next year! 
That is really cool. I think Teo would have loved the Irish/Highland dancers too.
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