Purple Pony Art Blog

Back in August, my husband and I made our first ever trip to Saskatchewan. It's just three hours to the border from Calgary, but it felt like a long, long drive due to tall the wide open spaces. We had booked the trip in February and then wondered if we should still go in the midst of wildfire smoke and a horrible heat wave. But, I felt if we didn't go now, we would never make the trip to see our friends who left the big city for small town life in Shaunavon. Shaunavon is a charming little town that's actually the first big city you hit. It has all the essentials and lots of touristy spots like East End and Gull Lake are within a half hour driving distance. Due to the heat, nothing went quite as planned. I picked that weekend because there was a horse show in town, but for the life of us, we could not find the rodeo grounds. "Just a few miles out of town," we were told but we couldn't even find it on Google Maps. We enjoyed dinner at the boutique Harvest Eatery, enjoyed ice cream at the Frosty Treat and trekked out to East End to see Scotty the T-Rex. I still have more photos to share - stay tuned!

It's amazing how you can know something without really knowing anything, and I sure learned a lot about San Francisco's cable cars on our trip. We had no idea that the cars needed to be manually rotated on a turntable whenever it reached a terminus.

We couldn't pass up the chance to ride a piece of history and neither could dozens of other people. I hoped we could ride the red one...but four cars went by before we could hop on. They come in blue, white, burgandy and tan as well as red. You can catch them at any point in the city, but we got on at Hyde Pier, which is close to Fisherman's Wharf and other touristy areas. It took about 45 minutes in line to get on a cable car.

San Francisco Cable Car, a photo by Calzephyr on Flickr.

It was crazy fun! The cars travel about 9 MPH and make a lot of noise. Years ago San Francisco thought about even getting rid of them. I learned about their neat history and saw the cables on action at the Cable Car Museum where admission is free. It's also pretty loud, as that's where the cables are turning endlessly for most of the day.

If there is one fact you must truly know, it's that the cars are not trolleys, because they do not use an overhead line.

It's $6 to ride the cable cars one way; get a one day pass for $14 and hop on, hop off to your heart's delight!

San Francisco Cable Car, a photo by Calzephyr on Flickr.

I spent a week in Princed Edward Island at the beginning of the month and I feel like I'm still there! Most of my trip to Prince Edward Island was overcast and rainy, but towards the end there were a few good sunny days and it was so fortunate that Wednesday, when I met up with a Facebook friend, that it was super sunny and warm! Like any place, PEI suffers from a touristy syndrome...Mom and I did a bus tour but it couldn't give us all the wonderful local knowledge that Kelly provided for us. She should be doing the tours :-D

The Red Shores Racetrack was not too far from our hotel and Kelly deked in there, where we met a couple of standardbred horses. Then it was off to her Mom's house where we had a lovely homemade surf and turf meal. Lobster is really not for me, but I tried it :-) After constantly eating out, it was so wonderful to eat home cooking.

After dinner it was time to hit the road and we went to Stanhope Beach. I have to admit that I saw a lot of the island, but I had no reference point for anything. We walked on the beach in the evening sun and Kelly explained all the different kinds of sea life that washed up on the shore, such as different shells and seaweed. As a prairie person, the ocean is always fascinating and enjoyable. It's hard to believe that large bodies of water exist :-D

Here's a great picture I took of the boardwalk at Stanhope - wish I was there again!





Earlier in the trip we visited Green Gables, and unfortunately it was very misty that morning. It was unreal and very haunting.

Many people think that L.M. Montgomery's heroine, Anne Shirley, is a real person. Lucy Maud actually didn't live in this house - her cousins did and she visited them frequently. There is a lot to do around the house, such as the Haunted Woods and Lover's Lane walks. The actual house is quite small and charming! Usually it is photographed from the front. I wish it hadn't been so misty when we visited, but there was a serene beauty to the heavy fog.

I took over 400 photos while in PEI and I'm still working on them! I hope to share more soon.