Old Home Week

on the island, towards the end of the summer, I've seen the signs for Old Home Week. But I never really understood what it was.

This year, however, an opportunity presented itself, and now I know what Old Home Week on PEI is!

Last Friday, we dropped a friend off at the airport around 5 p.m., and had several hours to kill before picking up my girlfriend, who was just coming down for the weekend, but on a later flight. So rather than drive all the way back out to the house, Alex and I decided to check out this Old Home Week business and see for ourselves what all the fuss is about.
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Turns out it's a bit like the CNE in Toronto, but on a smaller scale.

One similarity to Toronto' exhibition is the opportunistic parking business that springs up around the fairgrounds during the week: Just like in Toronto, Ch'town locals with homes backing onto the street adjacent to the fair put up hand crafted signs inviting people to park on their lawns -- and they pack those cars in! Alex and I estimated that on one lawn, there must have been at least fifty cars, which -- if they turn over 2-3 times a day -- garner the property owners a cool $5-6K in cash each year!!

As it was already quite late at night, the line ups were long, and Alex was pretty tired, we elected not to go on any rides. And although we did throw away $20 on one of those unwinnable ball-in-the-milk-crate carnival games, we spent most of our evening in the farm animal building, admiring the award-winning cows and alpaca, and trying our hand at some brain puzzles.
We also stopped to check out the horse races (but didn't do any betting).

Soon enough, it was time to hunt down our car and head back to the airport to collect our next visitor.
As Alex remarked, we were glad to have gone to check it out, but Old Home Week is one of those things where once is enough.