Gravel road - UGH! - and onwards to PEI

After visiting FORCE on Thursday, when we went back out to Gracie, we saw that a road grader was working on the gravel road out front. Since the trip in had about shaken the fillings out of our teeth (at least, it had vibrated a lot of things in the motorhome around!), we thought that would be a good thing... but we thought that if we left right away, we'd be slowed to his speed, so we decided to stop for lunch in the parking lot.

It turned out that the road grader made it out and back and was on his way back out by the time we were leaving. We let another visitor to FORCE leave the parking lot in front of us, and then we headed out, hoping that the gravel road would be in better shape for our trip out.

We should have walked out to the gravel road first... it turned out that the road grader had left a lane on the right for travel, but then there was about a foot high berm of loose gravel... we did okay on the straight away, but when we came to a curve, the lane was not wide enough for Gracie.

Carl asked me to get out and see if it looked safe for Gracie to move forward -- we were concerned that if Gracie got too far to the right, the side could give way and she could go over on the side. Once we had stopped, since we were not only just around a curve but also on a hill, Gracie did not have enough traction to continue up the hill. We decided to disconnect the Jeep, and, as we were doing that, realized that the road grader was on his way back to grade this area of the road. 

With the vehicles separated, I backed the Jeep down to a side drive/road, and then Carl backed Gracie into that same area so the grader could get through.

After the grader went through, there was another highway/utility truck following -- he saw our predicament and recommended that we wait until the grader had gone to the top and then come back down to have a better surface to travel on safely.

This was after the grader went through going up the hill...

Gracie where we stopped her in a driveway/road (and the Jeep pulled out to the side).

Gracie stopped across the side driveway/road -- we didn't like how her drive wheels were so low, and decided to back her up just a couple more feet so she would have a little umpf to get up the hill...

... it might not look like much of a hill, but we just couldn't get traction on the newly scraped gravel road after we had stopped.

Carl walked down the side road/driveway and as he was coming back up, took this picture -- it looks like the Jeep has run into the side of Gracie!

The man in the utility/highway truck followed the road grader down the road and indicated that we should be good to head on up the road. We kept the Jeep disconnected, Carl backed Gracie up so she had a little downslope for her drive wheels to get started, and then he flew up the hill. It wasn't obvious to us on the way to FORCE, but the gravel road had descended quite a ways, so he continued at a good rate of speed until he was at the top and on a level and straight section of gravel road. He stopped there and we re-connected the Jeep to Gracie. 

The good news is that the road where it was graded was in quite a bit better shape, so we didn't have as much vibration on the way out!

Still on the gravel road, a nice view of the Minas Basin -- there is fog hovering across it, but you can still see the land on the other side.

We continued on our way toward Prince Edward Island... Carl was driving this leg, and it wasn't a very easy one -- after nearly getting stuck on the gravel road, he had a long section of narrow roads with relatively heavy truck traffic which was often using all of their side of the road along with, sometimes, part of our lane! And, Gracie needed *all* of her lane! Eventually, we got back to the Trans Canada Highway -- 4-lane divided for a short time, and then a nice wide 2-lane road on our way to PEI.

Coming up to the Confederation Bridge to take us over to PEI

The Confederation bridge is an 8 mile bridge connecting PEI and New Brunswick. It was built in 1997 after a referendum in PEI passed by 59% indicating that they wanted a fixed link to replace the ferry. (https://www.confederationbridge.com/site/about)

There is still a ferry that connects Nova Scotia to PEI. It is interesting that both the ferry and the bridge only charge a fee/toll when you are leaving PEI -- so we haven't paid a toll *yet* -- but they'll get paid when we leave in a few days.

Signs welcoming us to PEI

A little further onto PEI - we saw this interesting traffic signal - the green light is round, yellow is diamond (or square turned 45 degrees) and red is square (and there were two of them on this signal). We have not observed that all of the traffic signals on PEI are like this, but we've seen a few different configurations.

We haven't seen a lot of traffic signals on the island -- but they certainly have a fair share of traffic circles!