Our only concrete plan, as far as I was aware, was to visit the Potato Museum, including the full-blown regional tour. We had called the night before (long story) to schedule the tour. The museum is in O'Leary, which is on the western edge of the island (about a 1:45 drive), and our tour was "around noon", so we left just before 10 AM.
As advertised, the farm tour includes: museum admission, potato-fudge tasting, visit to a potato farm, visit to a lighthouse, potato-themed lunch, etc.
The guy who normally does the tours was out of town (went to Halifax), and had someone else (Eric) fill in for him. Also, the restaurant at the museum isn't open on Saturdays, so the lunch was out. We all piled into a minivan with him, and drove off into the potato fields.
Eric was probably in his late sixties, but is still an active farmer. He drove us around the small (population: 800) town of O'Leary, pointing out some different farms and crops. He was born and raised in the area, and knew a lot about everyone. One of the first places he took us was a lobster-boat harbor (lobster season starts next week), where we got out and walked around for a bit.
Next, we took a brief drive through a "beef operation", but didn't get out due to... road conditions. April decided she didn't want to eat beef anymore.
As it was approaching 1 o'clock, Eric offered to stop at a local food establishment so we could get some lunch. The food was pretty decent, and reasonably-priced. We had burgers (except April), and Eric had ice cream.
After lunch, we went to a potato farm that's run by a buddy of Eric's. The guy is technically retired (his son runs the farm?), but he still operates the machine shop and other miscellaneous activities. We got an extensive tour of the farm, including the tractors and other farm equipment, potato storage/transportation and associated equipment, saw mill, shingle mill, machine shop, vegetable garden, etc.
Listening to these two natives speak to each other reminded me of being in Ireland: their conversation resembled English, but it was incredibly difficult to follow.
We said our goodbyes and thank yous to the retired potato farmer and headed down the road to the West Point Lighthouse, the tallest in all of PEI.
It's currently also an inn or B&B of some sort, and we went up to the top of it for a look around. The top level offered a nice view, including some of the 50-odd windmills scattered along the coast to the north.
The end of the tour brought us back to the potato museum, so we took the self-guided tour and learned more about potatoes than we ever thought was possible. At the end, we got a few plates of "potato fudge" (yes, it really exists...), which tastes better than it sounds.
By this time, it was nearly 5 o'clock, so we decided to head in the direction of Charlottetown. Not too far from the potato museum, we stopped at the Bottle Houses. This was a neat (and odd) attraction, essentially built buy an old guy in the early 80s as a way to recycle glass bottles (that would have ended up in a landfill, otherwise).
While traveling along the coastal road, toward Summerside, we spontaneously followed a sign to a random park/beach next to a campground. The dirt road that lead to the park ended suddenly at a short clay cliff. and we walked around a bit in the red mud/sand.
There was a vague plan to go to a grocery store and make dinner tonight (since we have a real kitchen), but we were running short on times, so we stopped at 2 Brothers restaurant for a quick dinner.
As we finally got back to Charlottetown, we stopped at a local grocery store chain and bought some food for dinner tomorrow and maybe the next day.
Tomorrow, there are tentative plans to do some ocean kayaking and take a seal-watching tour.
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