The Belvedere Golf & Country Club is just a short 2 minute walk from my mothers apartment where I was staying, taking a break from the beauty of Canoe Cove to explore Charlottetown and spend some time alone. It's a quiet area dominated by ugly old attempts at creating suburban strip malls and small box stores. Previously the area was called Sherwood but in 1995 it was amalgamated with Charlottetown along with the communities of Parkdale, Hillsborough Park, Winsloe, West Royalty, and East Royalty. The resulting megaopolis has a population of 32,245 (2001) which is about the same population of the apartment complexes near my house on Jinguo rd. here in Hsinchu.
The golf club makes quite a big deal of that fact that it is the home of Lorie Kane a local on the LPGA tour, who they describe as one of the finest golfers in the world. I'll take their word for it as I know nothing about golf, a fact that makes me an oddity in my family since they all play, some with almost religious fervor. Judging by the fact that Lorie has made over $6,000,000 over the past 9 years I would say the club deserves to be proud.
Walking through this area to downtown you eventually have little choice but to come upon the Charlottetown Driving Park which first opened it doors for standardbred harness races in 1889. This is the other side of my families passion and though I now have serious reservations about whipping horses as you race them around the track I do have many fond memories of summers hanging around the horse barns. Unfortunately the CDP has taken a turn for the worse, tearing down much of the old structures that gave it such character and replacing them with parking lots and a video gambling establishment. Something which has ruined the family flavour of the establishment and replaced it with a known activity which plays on the poor. It is now a place I would heartedly recommend avoiding.
Comments
August 19, 2005 07:33 AM
Reminds me of Kingwood Texas USA.
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