chipperI went for a 16km bike ride up and down the Confederation Trail this evening - I even met the Trail Patrol along the way, and on my return trip an hour later they were still in the same place. I wanted to ask what they were doing, but felt it better not to get involved. I was also hearing the odd rifle shot and wondering if it was related.
The trip: We managed to have breakfast in St. Peters as well as make a few shopping stops in Charlottetown. Aunt Shirley and I got new sneakers while Uncle Shane drove away and got a haircut in addition to his stops at the library and photo lab. Talk about multitasking.
Mill River was fine, but when we set out for “our” 2:30pm tee-time, I made the mistake of chattering to Shane about the merits of choosing a wood versus an iron for teeing off on the first hole. The starter, who may have decided to turn a blind eye before, came up with, “Excuse me, is he just walking with you?” and then insisted that we’d have to rent a cart. (I don’t play because I can’t afford to; I just walk around for the exercise and company. I know enough about golf not to get in anyone’s way or disturb people.) So it would be okay for me to sit in a cart all afternoon, but not to walk - I couldn’t even caddy for Uncle Shane.
Uncle Shane would have been willing to rent a cart, but I really wanted to walk. So I told them to go ahead, and I went for a bit of a walk. I found a cottager’s lane which parallelled the latter part of the first fairway, then stealthily caught up with them about halfway through the second hole. We had a great time, and then at the 17th tee, I hit the road (literally), and walked a mile or so around the perimeter of the resort and back in the main driveway. I could have taken a shortcut through the turf care facility, but it’s just as well that I didn’t discover that until it was too late, because I got a few nice photos the way I did go.
Afterwards we had a swim (complete with hot tub and waterslide - just fantastic!) and then drove to O’Leary for our late supper. Good times.
A digression: Everything feels different in Western PEI. They have different newspapers and listen to different radio stations (mostly from New Brunswick). They have different gas stations and different supermarkets. I’m serious! It’s as different from Eastern PEI as Mainland Nova Scotia is from Cape Breton. It feels a little like being on the other side of the world.
The next day we acquiesced and rented a cart (just as well, there was a long day ahead of us), and we had another enjoyable round. After leaving the resort, we drove through various little towns... not much point in going into detail now as I’ll be Flickring it in a few days. Right now I need a break from it, but I’ll be back in the saddle soon.
Anyway, we had great fun driving around, and then we ate at the Heritage Pub in Summerside and after that I got a chance to walk around on the waterfront and (you guessed it) take pictures. Then we went to see Anne and Gilbert, which was uncompromisingly excellent and may soon merit equal consideration with the “other” musical. Of course, you wouldn’t want to have both shows in Charlottetown. It makes absurdly perfect sense to have this complementary show in Summerside, which is itself PEI’s complementary city.
And I’ve spent the last day or two after we got back organizing photos and thinking about my next move. If that Farm Mutual scholarship comes through, I’m going to buy a laptop. For under $1,000, it looks like I can get something half decent. And then I’d have my own machine, and the freedom and means to write and organize my pictures to my heart’s content. More tempting, for $1,300 I can get something reasonably lightweight with complete capabilities. I don’t really need a widescreen laptop, I just want something small and personal.
It’s true that I could get a desktop with equivalent “power” for less money, but I have severe space constraints in my room. It’s much, much easier to sit and write on a laptop - it’s always there. It’s nice and quiet. (Especially since I’m not getting one of those desktop-replacement monstrosities with giant speakers that weighs 50 pounds.) And you can relocate a laptop, which is a nice benefit. I could even take it to school with me, but I most likely wouldn’t - it’d be a drag to have it along on my twenty-five-minute walk to the bus stop.
Anyway, I’ll get my second-semester courses figured out, calculate the wallet damage, and we’ll go from there. Someday I’ll have casual money and this will seem like a dream. Actually, I probably won’t have casual money, I’ll probably be obsessively saving every cent. But sometimes you have to spend a bit of money to make money. Like Virginia Woolf, I need a Laptop of My Own.
It would also be my first opportunity to truly tinker with post-3.1 Windows, as the machine would be mine and nobody would get upset when (inevitably) it stops working.
I’d better stop this now before I start to drool.
My friends are coming over on Monday, and the good news is that they seem to be willing to take the extra little trip to get out here. I’ll meet them in Charlottetown just in case they change their minds. On Tuesday I’ll go back to Nova Scotia. Gee, I’d better hurry up and make that shuttle reservation.
See you!
Your friend,
~ Will