WEDNESDAY 03 August
(There are no photos for this post. Sorry.)
First off, happy birthday to our son, Brendan. He too is on an epic road trip with his family as I write this, traveling west across southern Canada bound for Banff National Park and Lake Louise. We know it will be an amazing experience, especially for Mads, who is at an age where she will be awed by what she sees, and remember it for the rest of her life. She already has some travel experience, and likes it, so I suspect this trip will fuse in her a lifelong desire to travel.
That’s certainly what happened to me as a pre-teen when my parents to us (me and my sister) on a three-week trip of the “west.” I still recall the anticipation of seeing the Rocky Mountains for the first time, and being awe struck when they finally came into view. Of course, we also got to see the Grand Canyon (of the Colorado) NP, Yosemite NP, and Disneyland. On a trip a few years later, we went to Yellowstone NP and Grand Tetons NP. But we also did trips closer to home as well, such as the springs of Missouri. For our honeymoon, Linda and I went tent camping out west (Colorado and the four-corners area) for three weeks. And, early in our marriage, we even went on a trip with my parents to Wisconsin and Minnesota. Linda did not get to travel much as a child, but she has as an adult, especially in retirement, and she likes it.
Of course, there’s traveling and there’s traveling. We started out as tent campers and eventually became RVers. That’s a little different from planes, trains, automobiles, cruise ships and hotels/motels. Nothing wrong with the later, and we’ve done some of that too, but we like RVing for North American travel. We sleep in our own beds, eat our own food, and have our own bathroom. Is it more cost effective? Probably not, but we don’t travel this way to save on the cost; we do it for the experiences.
Any kind of travel can have its hassles, of course, such as terminals and security procedures for any form of public transport. Or schlepping suitcases in and out of taxi cabs and hotel rooms. Etc. So too with RVing. RVing takes some work, and it’s work you have to be able and willing to do, or you won’t enjoy the experience. The biggest part of the work is breaking and making camp, i.e., getting the truck and trailer ready to change locations, and then setting it up for use once we arrive at a new camping spot. And we are always at the mercy of the weather during this process.
Today was the beginning of our 8th week of the slightly more than 16 weeks we plan to be on the road. And it was a repositioning day, and the forecast was for rain. That’s less fun, for sure, but just like a motel room, when our reservation at an RV park is up, we have to leave. And there’s a reservation waiting for us at the next stop.
We checked the weather last night and saw that it was supposed to start raining around 2 AM this morning. And it did! The rain was supposed to continue through the morning, so we took care of as much of our outside departure routine as we could last night. We caught a break this morning when the rain turned out to be an intermittent mist and occasional drizzle.
I wasn’t feeling well last night, and I felt worse this morning, but we had to go anyway. Linda checked online and found a pharmacy in Flower Cove, just north of our destination. You do what you have to do.
We pulled out of our spot (site 60) around 10:45 AM, headed back to Hwy-430 (The Viking Trail) and headed north. Our destination was the St. Barbe RV Park in St. Barbe, NL. The speed limit was usually 90 km/hr., with occasional slowdowns to 80, 70, 60, and 50 km/hr. as we passed through the many small villages that dot this stretch of highway. The road was mostly good, but had the usual bumpy stretches and potholes. But we were please, in general, as we had been “cautioned” about the bad condition of the roads in Newfoundland, and presumed that this one, which access the long, remote western peninsula, would be the worst. Thankfully, that did not prove to be the case.
The drive was very interesting, however. As we headed north, the western peninsula became much flatter, and we drove through mist, light rain, and fog for most of the trip. It had an otherworldly feeling to it, as oncoming vehicles appeared out of the mist like ghost ships. We very rarely had anyone behind us, and only an occasional vehicle headed south. As we got closer to St. Barbe, the southbound traffic increased considerably, and we figured the ferry from Labrador had recently arrived.
We arrived at the RV park around 1:30 PM, but the person who manages the park was not in. We were told she had driven up to Flowers Cove to do some banking. The pair of young men who were there did not seem to know much about the operation, but managed to put Linda on the phone with the manager. She said to pick a spot and take care of registration and payment later when she got back. There was only one other RV here, so we had our choice of spots. The whole thing was pretty casual.
While the St. Barbe RV Park is not much more than a large fenced in parking lot, we originally chose it because it is walking distance to the South Labrador Ferry terminal and dock, and we had planned on taking the South Labrador Ferry over to Blanc-Sablon, Quebec and driving up into Labrador. Also, there are very few RV parks in this area. There is one much closer to the L’Anse aux Meadows Viking Settlement (Viking RV Park), but we would have had to tow the trailer another 180 miles (290 km) round-trip. Given our plans, it made more sense to just drive the truck to the Viking Settlement and back in one day.
Based on a visual inspection, we chose site #4, as it seemed to be fairly level side-to-side and front-to-back. I was able to back the trailer into the site without too much fanfare (yes!) and we had it level and disconnected from the truck quickly enough to be pleased with ourselves. After that it was plug in the electrical power (30A) and make the trailer ready to live in. A bonus was that potable water was available at the sites. We though it would be electric only, so that was a nice surprise.
Linda heated up some soup for a late lunch, after which we drove up to Flowers Cove for some cold and flu medicine and throat lozenges. The PharmaCare was on Hwy-430, so easy to find. The NLC store (Newfoundland Liquor Commission) was next door, and much larger. Based on the NLC stores we’ve seen, alcoholic beverages are an important part of the culture here. No judgement, just an observation.
Back at camp, I took my meds and then took a nap. When I finally got up, I got out all of the fresh water paraphernalia and hooked up the trailer to the potable water supply. We also made use of the showers that are available here. The building is very nice, with a large laundry room, men’s and women’s bathrooms, and a meeting room. Wi-Fi is available, but doesn’t work well at the sites as it is just a small wireless router sitting in the office. It is, however, quite usable from the meeting room. It turned out that the RV park is owned/operated by the village of St. Barbe.
Dinner was potato salad and hot dogs. Again, easy and simple, with very little time required to prepare or clean up. After dinner we watched as traffic came off of the ferry and other traffic pulled on. A few RVs came into the RV Park, but it was still mostly empty for the night, and very quiet.
The RV Park has a gate but they do not close it and just clip a rope across the opening to indicate they are closed. One of the last RVs to come in was a large 5th wheel that had just gotten off the ferry. The driver misjudged how to get his rig through the opening in the fence, cut his turn to tight to the right, and caught his patio awning on that gate pole. I was watching him come in (from our trailer), heard the “crunch” and saw parts fly off. He stopped briefly, but did not get out and look. He then proceeded to drive in and rip his awning loose from his rig. He pulled around the building and finally got out to see what had done. He pondered the situation for quite a while and then backed into a site a few spaces down from us. We felt bad for him, but probably not as bad as he felt for himself. In any event, there was nothing we could have done to prevent what happened, and nothing we could do after the fact to help fix it. It did, however, leave us wondering how much experience he had towing this RV.
Linda was off to bed early, and I worked on photos and blog posts before turning in for the night.
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