April 2003

Dear Family and Friends,

The month of April has been wonderful! It has seen our family get together in one large passenger van in which we drove down to New Jersey and visited with dad and Alice and mom and dad Burgess!

On the trip back we also stopped at the Bronx Zoo for a walk through this amazing habitat of wild animals and birds.

Spending time like this with our family means so much to us and we were filled with love and joy!

Our trip to Prince Edward Island with Bob and Earlene Chasse took place April 21-25.

Al and I drove to their farmhouse in Bucksport, Maine April 20th and spent the night with them. The next morning the 4 of us got into the Chasse's green station wagon with Bob driving and off we went for a 7 hour drive to Prince Edward Island in Canada.

In Maine we passed many mailboxes on the street in front of houses and the boxes were suspended at the ends of two chains. Earlene told me that the mailboxes are like this so that when the snowplow accidentally hits them, the boxes will swing on the chains rather than be knocked to the ground or smashed! It made sense to me.

I have read Anne of Green Gables and seen the videos of this story twice. The scenes are mostly cast in summertime when grass is very green and tall and wildflowers fill the open meadows swaying in the warm breeze. Bright colored flowers are everywhere in open fields leading to the deep blue sea as white puffy clouds go drifting by. This is how I pictured Prince Edward Island and I looked forward to romps through the meadows of daisies under a clear blue sky.

This isn't what I found on PEI in the month of April. April to me is the first month of spring. In PEI it is still WINTER! Instead of fields of green with daisies swaying in the warm breeze, I found stark trees stripped of all leaves, and the ground was earthen brown with drifts of snow at the edges of the fields. There were no bright colors in sight! No blooming flowers, no budding trees, no white puffy clouds and no romps through the meadows in a long flowing dress with a sunbonnet. No daisies. In addition, all the gift shops and island craft shops were shut up tight!

We all had a good laugh at how things really were in April. It just didn’t really matter after all. I found Prince Edward Island to be beautiful in winter as well!

While crossing the 9 mile car bridge that leads to the Island, I looked over the side of the bridge and saw what I thought were fishing boats in the distance near the coastline.

"They are not boats!" Al declared.

"They are ice bergs!" Bob explained.

It was the end of the day and we drove across the Island to Charlottetown. We saw a good-looking motel with a large sign overhead that read, "Country Inn". It looked fine to us so we parked the car and got out… AND NEARLY FELL OVER FROM THE COUNTRY ODOR THAT NOW FILLED OUR SENSES!" I think you know what I am talking about! It wasn't the smell of "Chantilly Lace" cologne, I'll tell you that! Yes, it was the strong smell of down home country. It was

Earlene and I staggered into the motel and checked on the prices there and talked to the lady at the desk. It all looked good on the inside so we signaled to our men and we checked into our two hotel rooms.

After a good nights sleep, Earlene and I went for an early morning walk before breakfast. The a….ah….country odor was still hanging in the air and later on the owner of the motel told us the lawns had just been fertilized with fresh manure from the farm on down the road.

After a good breakfast at "Maggies" across the way we were off in the car for a day of island exploring. Actually we spent 2 days taking the island in sections and driving around seeing what we could see. After I got over the shock that I would not be able to do any browsing in gift shops, I relaxed and fell in love with "Anne's Land". The sand is rusty red colored on this island and many of the buildings are made from this local red sandstone.

Bob and Earlene have visited this island before and they took us to the Cavendish Beach where we got out of the car and walked the long boardwalk to the beach area.

Just before we got to the beach we came to a playground. One of the pieces of equipment in the playground was a small excavator. Bob could not contain himself when he saw this and in the blink of an eye he hopped on this little gadget and starting swinging the little crane around like an expert! He dug into the red dirt with the scoop and picked it up and swung around and dumped it over and over. We laughed so hard at this and then proceeded with our walk.

The red sand beach was really beautiful with its irregular shaped jutting cliffs. We spent an hour or so there just walking the beach and picking up rocks and shells.

From there we drove to the Anne of Green Gables House. I enjoyed walking through this house very much and walking with Al and Bob and Earlene through the "Haunted Woods" which is described in the book written by E.M. Montgomery. Walking through the haunted woods was not like it was described in the book! The woods were cold and damp and ice and snow greeted us through much of it making walking very tricky. I had to cling to trees in some spots to keep my footing sure! We made it through without mishap and without ghostly apparitions.

Before we left the "Anne of Green Gables House" we viewed a short video about E.M. Montgomery with pictures of Prince Edward Island…in summertime. There before our eyes on the screen suddenly appeared a field of daisies!! When we saw it the 4 of us shouted "DAISES!" The impossible had happened. We were on the island in "winter" and we saw daisies!

God does have a wonderful sense of humor. He found a way for me to see a meadow filled with daisies!!! I felt like I had been give a great gift!

After we left Anne's house we stopped for lunch in a small little town at a family restaurant. We sat down at the table by the window and were handed our menus. Al and Bob and I ordered familiar fare, but Earlene had to be different.

"What's this thing on the menu called 'Donair'?" she questioned our waitress.

"It's meat." Was the answer.

"Meat?! What kind of meat?"

"I don't know."

"You don't know?!"

"Well, it's gray meat."

"Hmmmm….I"ll take it."

The rest of us thought Earlene was 'nuts' to order a mystery meat, but she was brave. She also told us it tasted good and offered some to Al. We all joked about it and said it might be "road kill"!

"No thank you!" said Al firmly.

So that day and the next we drove past potato farm after potato farm and past the most unique homes…mostly gabled homes. All the old houses and little country churches dotting the land fascinated me.

It is so cold in this place during the long winter months that many houses had very large woodpiles outside in their yards. I had never seen such large wood piles! Also on Monday the day we drove to the Island we saw many clotheslines behind houses filled with clothes drying. It looked like Monday is still very much Wash Day!

We did our share of getting lost. We would be driving down this country road and all of a sudden the road would end and we would be facing dense treeland. OOOOOPs! We had to then turn around and try another road! This happened about 3 or 4 times to us but it didn't phase us. Just made the driving all the more interesting.

On Wednesday afternoon we left the island and started back to Maine.

We stayed in a motel in Fredericton, NB and then the next day (Thursday) drove back to Bucksport, Maine where Bob and Earlene live.

Along the way we stopped for lunch way out in the country in Northern Maine at a tiny restaurant. This was a small domed restaurant and our waitress was was the owner and also our cook! We were served delicious turkey dinners and we ate under the gaze of stuffed bears and deer heads. We were in hunting and fishing country!

When we got back to the car Earlene noticed that the left rear car tire looked flat.

"No, " said Bob. "It is probably just sitting in a hole".

"No," said Earlene. "It is not sitting in a hole. It is flat."

Earlene was right. So Al and Bob worked at getting the tire off and the "training tire" as Bob called it, put on.

With the training tire on we drove to a garage and Al got out to ask about having the tire repaired.

Al and the garage man stood next to a big tractor and talked awhile. I noticed that on the door of this garage hung a sign that read:

When Al came back to the car and got in he said, "They don't do auto repairs here, but he gave me directions to "Midnight Auto Repair" where they can fix us up.

"MIDNIGHT AUTO?!!!" said Bob, turning white. " Oh no. Not "Midnight Auto!"

"Why?" I asked. "What is wrong with "Midnight Auto?"

"Midnight Auto" is where you take stolen cars and the like. Underhanded…illegal things go on there…

We followed the directions Al was given and we drove and drove until we decided we had passed it.

But Earlene with her sharp eyes spoke up and said,

"I see a sign on the building ahead that has a half moon on it and some stars around it…"

Sure enough it was our "Midnight Auto" garage.

They did not have the right sized tire for our car and told us our tire was not repairable. We needed a new tire, but the nearest place to get one was in Bangor, a 2 hour drive to the South.

I think Bob was relieved we had to leave that place with our "training tire" still on the car.

He decided to drive to the tire store in Bangor, Maine. This worked out fine, and we arrived at the tire shop 15 minutes before closing. They quickly sold Bob a new tire and put it on for him.

On the way home to Bucksport that day Bob and Earlene showed us the longest covered bridge in the world, which is in Hartland, NB. We drove through this long bridge and took a picture of it.

We also stopped at "Irving Gas Station" in Hartland to use the bathrooms and while there I noticed a sign that said, "GIFTS". And the store had lights on inside! An actual gift shop that was open!

We all went inside and browsed around a little before driving on.

Thursday night we spent at Bob and Earlene's again and Friday morning Earlene took me for a tramp in their woods to find the beaver pond.

I wore Bob's boots because the muddy rough walk would not be comfortable in my sneakers.

Friday was a clear and sunny day and I loved following Earlene through the woods and swampy areas. It was not easy, mind you, but I found a walking stick to help me.

Just listening to the sounds in the woods was wonderful and the woodsy smell the birdcalls and the beaver pond and beaver house!

Earlene also pointed out to me the birch tree where a beaver had nearly eaten the base of the tree trunk clear off!! I didn't know how the tree could remain standing on just a narrow point of wood!

Back at the house I took off the boots, put my sneakers on and then sadly hugged Bob and Earlene good bye.

The week away from home with these good friends had been just what Al and I needed. We were refreshed. We were happy and we knew we would see our friends again.

God had blessed us again with a wonderful experience of friendship in His beautiful creation of nature. We are so grateful and filled with His love and joy.