Someone once told me that when we drive off to vacation, our intention is to see things-- Bryce Canyon, New York City, Florida Keys or the Great Salt Lake-- but what we remember are the people we meet.

Well, maybe, sometimes. And maybe we remember the folks when what we left to see isn't as spectacular as we anticipated.

We just returned from another jaunt to Canada, this time visiting Prince Edward Island. The island is about the size of Delaware, but it has less than half the population of York County. While glad to have visited, I'd say the scenery is nice, but not extraordinary. But as usual, the kind and friendly Canadian people made it a trip to remember.

Darren works at a crab plant near Souris. A native Newfoundler, he says jobs are more plentiful here, and his parents helped him find work in the factory. It's tough work, he says, and truck driving school is in his future. Well-spoken and easy-going, Darren says when he first came to PEI, he thought it was a 'pasture in the middle of the ocean'.

Duane is a proud potato farmer, and climbed down from his big tractor to talk when he saw me taking pictures of the high furrows. Boasting about the PEI spuds, he said if we eat a potato in Canada, it probably came from a PEI field. Duane farms about 1,000 acres, about 310 in potatoes. No one in PEI is allowed to own more than 3,000 acres, he says, because a certain oil company came in and bought up most of New Brunswick, PEI's neighbor to the south. PEI folks took measures to keep that from happening.

Shelly had to quiet her three barking dachunds when I knocked on her door. I asked why all around her family's farm, antique wheels decorated-- or helped hold up-- a fence post. Her husband Francis collects them, she says. He's a carpenter by trade, but was off oyster fishing today. His goal is to collect 1,000 wheels, and display them all over the farm. When he's not fishing, he's tending to his beef cattle. Francis and Shelly are busy folks.

Ron McWilliams is president of the Dairy Farmers of Prince Edward Island, and he and his wife tend a farm that is just a wind gust away from the ocean on PEI's southwest shore. A bald eagle sits on a fence post, looking over the 90-foot cliff. Mosquitos and black flies try their best to carry me away.

On some of PEI's license plates, it calls itself the "Canada's Green Province". To the east of McWilliams' farm are huge windmills. While some people have complained it clutters up the landscape, McWilliams seems resigned to the fact that wind power might be the way to deal with the energy problem. More than 40 windmills are either in operation or planning stages.

David and Kodie are slouched at a diners' table, watching their Dad pound at the laptop. The teenagers from Dover, Ohio, are obviously not happy, being stuck here "in the middle of nowhere" with no TV, one computer, and little to do. But, they're smiling anyway. While their parents talks about the small burg's virtues, David and Kodie roll their eyes and snicker.

Alice and her husband raised seven grandchildren on their small farm. But he died recently, and Alice is trying her best to keep up the farm, the lawn, the house and the glorious garden. "I don't know if I can keep it," she says. "It's a lot of work." But my bet is that she will. Across the street, a couple was trying to rehab an old cottage. Before she left for an extended family visit, the woman left a 'handful' of money to him so a sewer and running water could be installed. When she returned, nothing was done, but the money was gone. She was soon gone, as well.

Arielle and Ty are returning from their long walk during low tide. The walk took them a half mile or more to where the waves finally meet the shore. They plan to be married in their home in Puerto Rico, despite both their parents' strenuous objections.

It was a good trip. I've never been to Canada when it wasn't.

For more travel tips and information, check Jen Vogelsong's blog at http://www.yorkblog.com/explorer/

One of my many shortcomings is that I have the patience of a cocker spaniel puppy.

But sometimes, a photographer should just sit for a bit, enjoy the scenery, and wait for another element that makes a photo a lot stronger. It might hurt, but maybe it's worth the wait.

Either of these pictures would be OK without the seagulls, but the Confederation Bridge in Prince Edward Island would be just a bridge, and the sunset, well, just another beautiful sunset on Cape Cod.

For more travel information and tips, check Jen Vogelsong's travel blog.

Keeping a photograph simple and easy to look at, while still getting all what you're trying to show, is sometimes tough. Certainly, you don't want a photograph that's clogged up with information.

Canada's Prince Edward Island was isolated from the rest of Canada until just a few years ago when the Confederation Bridge was built. It's become the new life line to PEI, and is the quickest way to the nation's smallest province.

The trip across the bridge takes only 12 minutes, and it opened PEI to the world. Tourism is up, and tourists like me are thrilled. The ferry still operates for those who prefer a slower, more scenic trip but it takes about 90 minutes.

Getting all of PEI in one picture is tough. But once on the island, tourists discover rolling hills covered in lupines in early summer, plenty of fishing villages and small wharfs, churches of every size and shape and color, and scenes made for postcards. Lighthouses are miniatures, and at least one on every cape.

This photo has the bridge, the flowers, the working fishing boats, lighthouse. It doesn't appear too busy, despite all the visual information.

Now Nunavut is the only Canadian province not yet visited.

Nothing special, except that it's some of my favorite people in one of my favorites places on Monday. Ricketts Glen State Park, a niece, nephew, their kids and spouse.

It's tough to take a bad picture of Ricketts Glen. Or this bunch.

Shooting in Mount Gretna Monday for a future possible Excursion, I wandered up and down the streets of this boro most of the day. Some streets in the area were so narrow that my van tires barely made it between the curbs. Very quaint. Very nice.

There's plenty to see. The Jigger Shop--a wonderful shaded restaurant and ice cream stand-- a lake for swimming and canoeing, a live theater, tall evergreens everywhere and houses that were originally summer cottages for wealthy folks from Philadelphia. A bike rail-trail is a block outside of town. And there's an art show in August that will knock your socks off.

I stopped to shoot the narrow roads and saw Jasmine, this pure white, long haired cat lounging on a porch. Being white and in the sun, the shade background went black. So I tweaked the contrast, dodged the porch rails, and generally did more work on this than are done on some of the city's downtown murals.

Can't do that in the newspaper. But sometimes it's fun to get into the Photoshop tool box and play.

Sometimes, things don't go as planned, but everything turns out OK in the end. Be flexible, 'wing' it. And enjoy the ride.

I had hoped to spend the holiday weekend near Sandusky, Ohio, home of Cedar Point and dozens of roller coasters. Sandusky and the Lake Erie Islands is an area loaded with photographs just begging to be taken. With batteries charged, lenses clean, I was anticipating an entire day of searching for The Perfect Picture on the islands.

Before that, I wanted to visit one of my favorite people, a good friend's daughter, Davette Schlett. We don't talk or write as often as I'd like.

Crashed a birthday party for one of her sons, ate pizza and cake, renewed old friendships and was happy to see her big, beautiful smile. She and her family-- including her father Greg-- are doing well. That part of the trip went perfectly.

Next was Pelee Island, the largest island in Lake Erie, and just a stone's throw into Canada.

Couldn't catch a ferry to the island and return the same day from Sandusky, so I had to drive around Lake Erie to Kingsville, Ontario, where I could catch the ferry Jiimaan in the morning and return late Sunday. From there, I'd drive to Buffalo and back to York in time for work on Tuesday.

So I had all day Sunday to bike and explore the island, nine miles by three miles. The southern part of the island drew my attention for its conservation areas, savannas, woods and wetlands. Fish Point, on the southwestern tip of Pelee Island, is a 110-hectare provincial nature reserve. Or that was the plan. Imagine the images...

Pelee is known for its large numbers of migrating birds. But most have traveled through by now, and flowers were the stars of the show. Unless you count the mosquitoes, who seemed intent on carrying me away piece by piece. The pictures were just OK, and I'll return to Pelee another time.

But returning on the Jiimaan, I met Wendy and her dog. Wendy was watching five young boys, and between checking on them and watering the dog, she told me the stories of growing up on Pelee. She told me of going to school (seven students), exploring every inch of the island, and buying groceries four months in advance (winter's thick ice kept supply boats away). It must have been wonderful. Or at least, very interesting.

The boys were exhausted by the time the Jiimaan reached the Kingsville docks. But none of them showed it quite like the dog. She had a very very long day.

The original plan wasn't to drive that many miles. But the weekend was a gem, and the best picture of the weekend was of an exhausted dog on the ferry. It reminded me of a long and happy holiday.

A friend of mine and former YDR reporter is taking her first big trip of the American and Canadian West, and is amazed at how beautiful it all is. She's seeing mountains, canyons, cornfields, lakes and forests that she might have assumed were across an ocean. After traveling the world, she is enjoying the sights that I was lucky enough to know as a young boy.

Now, that's that not bragging exactly, because I've not seen the Pyramids or China as she has. But our family traveled by car every summer, jamming an old Pontiac station wagon full of tents, tarps and ice chests.Behind it, we're dragging a one wheel trailer with a home-made (and brilliant) space-saver pup tent on top, where my brother and I slept.

Since then, I've continued Mom and Dad's dreams. I'll have seen all but one of the Canadian provinces by summer's end (not Nunavut), and all but Hawaii (and probably never will. You can't drive there.). When I was only 16, I had seen all but one state of the 48. I added Mississippi soon after.

Many people have seen more of the world, but I consider myself fortunate that we saw the back roads of Iowa, the nature trails of Maine and New Mexico and the super highways of LA. We didn't fly. As we crawled past, we saw every lightpost, telelphone pole and rest area between here and the Pacific Coast.

We were big on history and science, because you could see alot of both for free. It's been a family joke that we've seen every free museum, and hiked every free wooded path in the country.

We took plenty of short cuts. Many didn't get us where we wanted to go, but we often found something else much better. One of my favorite sayings-- If it doesn't matter where you are, you're not lost.

And because of that, it's still a game finding birds and animals on a walk. Or remembering details of a museum in Stewart River, Yukon , or the Billy the Kid museum in Fort Sunmer, New Mexico.

We explored ghost towns of the old west, where cities and people thrived, usually because of gold or silver, but were abandoned once the mines played out. I still enjoy searching out the towns, but have expanded to the east, where coal mining towns (Pennsylvania and West Virginia) or old shipping towns of New England have long ago ceased, or now are just 'ghosts' of their old selves.

This picture is from Animas Forks, up an old dirt road in the San Juan Mountains. Beyond being interesting historically, ghost towns are often in very remote, very serene locations, giving even people with no love of history a place to enjoy. Many are more than 100 years old and are literally falling apart. Unfortunately, antique collectors scour the grounds and buildings for trinkets, leaving little to discover for those who follow.

As the towns revert back to nature, the animals return, the forest begins to overtake the land, and it's beautiful once more.
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For more travel information, check out Jen Vogelsong's blog. A facsinating list of the world's best 100 best places to stand awaits.