MONDAY 22 August

(Note:  There are 8 photos for this post, but they are all associated with the 2^nd day.)

Today was a travel day for us, and we had a longer way to drive than usual.  That meant and early start and that, in turn, meant no coffee or breakfast.  We targeted a 9:00 AM departure, and actually pulled out of the campground at 8:58 AM.

Our destination was Sanger Memorial RV Park in Grand Falls – Windsor, Newfoundland, a 424 km (~263 mi) drive and the closest city to half way between St. John’s and Channel-Port-aux-Basque.  Our mapping and navigation devices said it would take ~ 4-1/2 hours.

Our hitch up procedure went smoothly, as it pretty much has since we developed our checklists and started using them.  We had nice weather for the drive, starting out cloudy and cool and eventually becoming sunny and a bit warm.  Except for a couple of miles on either end of the trip, our route was the Trans-Canada Highway (Hwy-1) west.  This stretch of the T-CH is very good, some of the best road we have driven in Newfoundland.  It’s posted 100 km/hr maximum for most of this length except in Terra Nova National Park where it’s typically 80 or 90 km/hr.  There were the usual slowdowns to 70 or even 60 km/hr at major road intersections or areas of roadside development, but the navigation systems take that into account when estimating arrival time.

We pulled into Sanger Memorial RV Park at 13:38.  Linda took care of our registration and we were in our pull-through, full-services site (#43) by 13:50.  (Our What 3 Words location is “handles.mixers.restored”.)  We had to level side-to-side about 1.5”, but we got that done fairly easily and completed the rest of our un-hitching/arrival routine.  The temperature was in low 80’s (F) by now and even though the humidity was comfortable, we turned on the main heat-pump in cooling mode.  Being on a 50A electrical service, we also turned on the electric element for the water heater.

We were hungry by this point, but Linda wanted to get a load of laundry started, so she stripped the beds and headed over to the laundry room, which was only three sites away from ours’.  With a load in the washer, she made a breakfast meal for “linner”; Bagel sandwiches with Just Egg patties, cheese, and sausage patties.  (All vegan, of course.)  Just part of the program to use up refrigerated and frozen items as much as possible before getting on the ferry to Nova Scotia this Friday.

Getting the laundry done made a more hectic afternoon than either us would have liked, but it needed to be done and our next/earliest opportunity would be on Saturday, but more likely next Monday.  If nothing else, you gotta have clean underwear.  ?  The laundry room only had two washing machines and one dryer.  The washing machines took quarters but ran a load in about 30 minutes.  The dryer did not take any money or have a card slot or keypad for a code.  A sign said to go to the office and pay the 3$ cost for a cycle, which was ~70 minutes.

As I was getting ready to walk to the office to take care of this, a notification popped up that a good friend of ours had died in an accident, with a suspicious link.  The notification appeared to be from Messenger, the messaging app that Facebook uses, but I don’t, because almost every message I’ve received proved to be bogus.  It turned out that I gotten a similar message a week or so ago, but I thought it had come from the person rather than being about them.  As I was walking to the office, I got a call from our friend Pat letting me know that both of these notifications were bogus.  Indeed, later in the day a third one popped up for yet another friend.  The commonality among all of these, beyond Messenger, was that they were all members of the two converted bus groups we belong to.  It appeared to me that someone ‘s account got hacked (which is why I hate Messenger) and the hacker gained access to their address book and was , perhaps, successful in then hacking additional account.  I’ve done surprisingly well not using Facepuke while on this trip.  I should delete my account, but there are groups I belong to that I find genuinely useful and interesting, including “Camping Eastern Canada.”

Like Pippy Park CG in St. John’s, Sanger Memorial RV Park is a municipal campground that is part of a larger day-use park along the north side of the Exploits River.  Trails from the campground lead down to the river front, and we went for stroll while our laundry was in the dryer.  The campground had password protected Wi-Fi, with Wi-Fi access point (or router) in/near the laundry building, but the signal was weak, we had trouble connecting some of our devices, and the data transfer rate was very slow when we were able to use it at all.  I used the “inSSIDer” program on my laptop to examine the Wi-Fi signals in the area.  Indeed, the Park Wi-Fi was a single radio on the 2.4 GHz band, with a weak signal and a low data rate.  Yeah, that’s not gonna work too well.

We were admittedly “spoiled” after the Wi-Fi at Pippy Park, even with the connectivity issues we eventually encountered, and needed to recalibrate our expectations.  Our cellular signal was also weak, but we were able to use our phones to get to the Internet and hotspot them to get my computer online.  Our iPads were fine, and never seem to have any difficulty connecting to anything.

We had a light dinner:  garlic hummus with chips, and a bowl of fresh fruit and then went for another stroll around the campground.  Another airstream had pulled in during the afternoon (making three in our section of the campground) and parked two sites down from us.  The trailer, and the white Ford F-250 looked familiar.  The door was open so we shouted “hello.”  Sure enough, it was Don and Soon, who we first met at the Gros Morne – Norris Point KOA.  It turned out that the had been at Pippy Park CG the entire time we were there, in the same section of the campground as us, but we never crossed paths.  They had also been to L’Anse-aux-Meadows around the same time we were.  Like us, they were headed to Grand Codroy RV/Tent Camping Park, just north of Channel-Port-aux Basques, to catch the ferry back to North Sydney, Nova Scotia.  There reservation was for the next day (24^th); ours is for the 26^th.  Newfoundland is a big place, but a small world.

TUESDAY 23 August

I was up early, in part to see if I could connect to, and actually use, the rather anemic park Wi-Fi.  Before going to bed last night, I had started downloading the 14 app updates pending on my iPad Pro and left it on and plugged in to charge.  This morning, seven of them had completed.  I was still connected to the Park Wi-Fi, but had to reconnect to the iStore and initiate the remaining updates.  All of them completed successfully, albeit extremely slowly.

PHOTO – 300x323_parasol-whitetop_SMRVPk…  We saw this flowering plant while walking around Sanger Memorial RV Park and Gorge Park.  Google Lens identified it as Parasol Whitetop.

We saw this flowering plant while walking around Sanger Memorial RV Park and Gorge Park.  Google Lens identified it as Parasol Whitetop.

I made a cup of coffee while waiting for my iPad to finish updating.  When my iPad was done, I finished a multi-Sudoku game I had started last night.  With that done, I returned to working on the blog post for this past Sunday.  The post was written but I still needed to select and edit photos.  My initial impression of them on Sunday was not very favorable.  But with the passage of 36 hours, and having better (darker) light conditions in which to work, I managed to pick and process 14 of them.  Again, it was a cloudy day and the lighting was not ideal, but I was satisfied with my choices and manipulations (which I try to not overdo, other than straightening and cropping).

Sanger Memorial RV Park is a municipal park.  Between the RV park and the Exploits River is the municipal Gorge Park, accessible from the campground via a short trail.

Today was my sister’s 67^th birthday, so we both sent her “happy birthday” wishes via text message.  It’s not as nice as getting a card in the mail, but Linda has found keeping up with cards to the grand-daughters to be a challenge.  In the past, we had an app that allowed us to create a postcard, image on one side, text and address on the other, apply a personal stamp, and have it printed and mailed from a business in San Diego, California.  The owner never made any real profit from it, had reached his mid-70’s, and shut it down this year so he could travel.  We couldn’t fault him for that, but we miss that service as it allowed us to send Mads a post card once a week like clockwork, and wanted to do the same for Sadie.

Atlantic Salmon dominate the local culture.  This larger-than-life statue was at Gorge Park.

We decided to redo our COVID-19 tests this morning.  We were both negative.  We’ve been feeling back to normal, more or less, for a week now, but it was a relief to have objective evidence that we are not sick or contagious.

This Atlantic Salmon in the underwater viewing tank swam by to check us out.

Our son, daughter-in-law, and two youngest grand-daughters got home on Sunday from their 3-week trip to Banff National Park (Parks Canada) and back.  The girls had Monday to settle back into their home routine, but were anxious to talk to us.  We Facetime with them when we can, but our Internet connection at Sanger Memorial RV Park would not support that, so this was voice call only.  Both girls seemed to have genuinely enjoyed their “camping” trip out west, which was very nice for us to hear.   We were impressed with how much Sadie’s speech has improved, but then, she’s quick to point out that she is  “almost four.”

The outflow from the Grand Falls-Windsor Dam runs through a dramatic gorge.

After our telephone chat with the grand-daughters, we drove the short distance west to see Grand Falls Windsor and visit the Salmonid Interpretation Center.  This is where a non-profit organization was created to work with the hydroelectric company and the provincial and national government to reclaim the Exploits River as a significant habitat for the Atlantic Salmon.  This involved cleaning up the river and creating an infrastructure that would allow Atlantic Salmon to get around hydroelectric dams as well as natural obstructions and reach spawning grounds much deeper in the river system.  The hydroelectric dams, starting with Bishop Falls, had cut off access to most of the river and its tributaries, but this project resulted in the Salmon reaching places in the watershed that could not reach naturally.

The Grand Falls with a low water flow were still impressive.

The Salmonid Interpretation Center explains all of this and allows visitors to view some of the “fish ladder” structure, including a subsurface viewing area into a holding tank.  But the tank serves another, very important, purpose.  Using an automated video recording system, the fish in the holding area, which are headed upstream, are counted every hour and then released to continue their journey.  Not that long ago, they only counter 1,200 fish getting to this point.  This year they have counted 45,000 and they believe the watershed is capable of getting that number up to 100,000 or more.

There was a short trail to a viewing area, and I was able to get a few photos with my phone of the waterfall.  It’s been an unusually dry summer here, and the center staff “apologized” for the low water levels and flow rate.  We still though it was impressive, but based on the film we watched, it must really be something with the snow melt and spring rains.

Linda, framed by a driftwood art piece of an Atlantic Salmon.

There used to be two towns here; Grand Falls, located south of the T-CH, and Windsor, located north of the T-CH.  In fact, the guy in the trailer next to us, explained that the two towns used to be divided by the Trans-Newfoundland Railroad tracks.  Once the railroad ceased to operate, the tracks were removed.   They amalgamated on January 1, 1991 to become the single town of Grand Falls-Windsor.  It wasn’t until we found this out that the name made any sense.  But then it seemed to me that it was hyphenated incorrectly, and should be Grand Falls – Windsor, but it’s not.  (Note the spaces on either side of the long hyphen.)  The area, especially the Exploits River, is now well known for its Atlantic salmon and actions taken to address their sustainability.

From the Salmonid Interpretation Center, we drove to the Irving Oil fuel station in the Grand Falls part of town.  On the way, we took a detour through the downtown area.  It was bigger than we expected, and quite nice, especially the Town Hall.  The fill up at the gas station was a record for this trip; 108 L and 210$.  It will be similar tomorrow, as we have slightly farther to drive than we did yesterday.  Our neighbor at the RV Park said there used to be a marker about 10 miles west of here for the mid-point of the Newfoundland Trans-Canada Highway.  The highway was completed in 1965 and was a big deal.

We still had some items to launder, so I handled that chore for a change, which gave Linda a chance to sit outside and read.  I took my iPad and sat in the laundry room, where I had enough Internet access to play a few games and catch up on some blog posts using Feedly.  We won’t need to do laundry again until we get to the KOA in Halifax, Nova Scotia six days from now.

Dinner was a simple meal of vegan Italian sausage on bun (with mustard) and baked beans.  We always keep an eye on the weather forecast, so we knew that rain would likely start around 7:30 this evening and continue through the night and into the morning.  Since tomorrow is another long travel day, we will be leaving a bit earlier than usual in the morning.  To minimize having to work in the rain tomorrow, we went out after dinner and drained the waste tanks, stowed the sewer hoses and adapters, disconnected and stowed the shore water system components, and put our camping chairs away.  I also installed the stinger in the truck and lined it up with the 3P hitch.  We were just finishing around 7:30 PM when it started to sprinkle.

The barn getting the vapor barrier wrap installed in preparation for siding.  (Photo by Keith-the-lawn-guy.)

The rest of the evening was spent doing what we often do, with Linda reading a book and me working on photos and blog text.  I did get a text message from Keith-the-lawn-care-guy with a photo of the barn showing the vapor barrier “house wrap” being installed and siding waiting to go over it.  I had not bugged Chuck-the-builder in a couple of weeks, so I texted him to request a couple of update photos.

…

SUNDAY 21 August

(Note:  There are 14 photos in this post, all of them having to do with the Ecological Reserve.  They are distributed throughout the post, with captions.  Most of them are higher resolution than they appear in the post.  You might be able to click on them to see them full-resolution and actually see the birds.)

I was up later last night than I should have been, but I had things I wanted to get done before I went to bed.  Linda was up before me (again) this morning and I got up at 7:45 AM.  Linda made coffee while I started up my computer.  Much to my surprise, it connected to the Park Wi-Fi.  We had to leave at 10:15, so I did not have much time to do anything online, what with breakfast and all (I ate the last vegan raspberry strudel stick).  I decided to leave my computer turned on and connected to the park Wi-Fi while we were away for the day in the hope that it would still be connected when we got back.

Our main focus for today was a boat tour with O’Brien’s Whale & Bird Tours, operating out of Bay Bulls, Newfoundland to the Witless Bay Ecological Reserve (WBER).  WBER covers a group of four uninhabited islands at the mouth of Witless Bay, which is the next bay south of Bay Bulls.  (The islands are:  Gull Island, Green Island, Great Island, and Pee Pee Island.)   The islands are a major breeding ground for a variety of sea birds, including the Atlantic Puffin, Common Murre, and Leach’s storm-petrel.

The four islands that make up the Witless Bay Ecological Reserve are un-habited and off-limits to human visitors except for scientists from Memorial University.  The coastline of most of the islands look like this.

We took O’Brien’s Whale & Puffin Tour Boat to see birds, but the geology was equally interesting and impressive.

The weather today turned out to be cloudy, but no rain and only a light wind.  Since we would be out in the open water on a boat, we dressed in a couple of light layers and took our rain coats (as wind breakers) and light weight hoodies.  I took the SONY a99 DSLR with my good Zeiss 24-70 mm zoom lens.  I have a 100-300 mm Minolta zoom lens, which is lighter and might have been a more appropriate choice, but it does not have the same optical quality as the Zeiss.

Bay Bulls is almost due south of St. John’s, and was only a 35-minute drive from our campsite at Pippy Park using Allandale Road to the Trans-Canada Highway to Hwy-2 to Hwy-3 to Hwy-10 (The Irish Coast Drive).  This was basically the same drive we did yesterday coming back from Lord Baltimore’s Colony of Avalon in Ferryland, another 45 minutes south on Hwy-10.

There are a few sea gulls on these rocks, but I just liked the shape and colors.

Common Murres.  There were hundreds of thousands of them on the islands.

The F-150 has an integral Tire Pressure Monitoring System and I tend to keep an eye on the tire pressures.  I seemed to recall that when I checked them on Friday after the service appointment they was as expected/requested.  Today they were reversed, which is to say, the “front” tires were reading 45 psi and the “rear” tires were reading 41 psi.  No way was that correct.  I “ass”umed the technician had not reprogramed the system to account for moving the tires, but made a mental note to check the truck tires when I added air to one of the trailer tires once we got back to camp.

More Common Murres, and a few sea gulls.  One of the gulls is actually the top predator on these islands, even in the presence of Bald Eagles.

Puffins hanging out by their burrows.  They dig burrows deep into the hillside.  Each pair lays one egg each breeding season.  They mate for life, but are solitary except during breeding season spending 8 months apart each year by returning to the same burrow and mate (if they have survived) each year.

We arrived the required 30 minutes ahead of our 11:30 AM sailing, got our boarding passes (Linda had made our reservations online) and got in line.  The started loading the ship at 11:20 AM, and pulled away from the dock right on time.

The crew was very good, as they usually are on tour boats;  friendly, knowledgeable, and entertaining.  It was a great outing in which we got to see a LOT of birds, some of them on the wing, of course, but most of them perched on steep hillsides and rocky cliffs.  The tour guides shared a lot information about the birds here, and pointed out things they saw.  We (Linda, especially) finally got to really see Puffins.

A closer view of the Puffins.  The boat got reasonably close to the shore, but the birds are small and I did not have a long enough focal length lens to get good photos of individual birds.

This photo shows the Puffin burrows more clearly.  Note the sea gull hanging around center-top, looking for an opportunity to get a meal.

The Witless Bay Ecological Reserve is home to the largest colony of breeding Atlantic Puffins in North America, and the second largest colony overall at approximately 500,000 individuals, just behind the one in Iceland.  A very large colony of Common Merre also breed here and the Reserve hosts the second-largest colony of Leach’s storm-petrels, roughly 700,000 pairs.

We saw lots of Puffins and Common Merres, but also various sea gulls and a dozen Bald Eagles.  The gulls and the eagles are predators here, so the Puffins and Merres breeding success is a numbers game.

When the boat got back to the dock, we spent a few minutes in the gift shop where Linda found a really nice T-shirt with an embroidered Puffin and “Newfoundland”.

Although difficult to see in this photo (click to enlarge?) this hillside is covered with thousands of Common Murres packed closely together.

On the drive back to camp we made several stops.  First was the Sobeys in Mt. Pearl to top up our stock of non-perishable food and pick up a few other sundry items.  Next was a nearby Pet Valu for another box of Dr. Elsey’s cat litter, but they only had it large bags.  Linda did a quick search for other pet supply stores and was surprised to find a PetSmart not far away. And they had what we were looking for.  From there we took Old Placentia Road to its terminus at Kenmount Road and stopped at the Irving filling station to top up the fuel tank.  The pump I selected wasn’t working correctly so I moved to another one and fueled up.  Our errands done, we returned to camp via the now familiar route through the heart of Memorial University on Prince Philip Dr.

There are a few birds in this photo, but I just liked the composition.

Back at camp, Linda started preparing dinner; angel hair pasta with onions and garlic lightly sauteed in olive oil before adding sun-dried tomatoes, shitake mushrooms, and vegan Italian sausage.  We used the last of our vegan parmesan (sprinkle) cheese.  We did not have wine, which would have been nice, because we forgot to put a botte in the refrigerator this morning before we left.

While Linda did her thing in the kitchen, I got out the VIAIR air-compressor and brought the pressure up slightly in the driver-side front trailer tire.  After I put everything away, I installed the stinger for the 3P hitch in the truck receiver and positioned it in front of the trailer, ready to hook up tomorrow morning.  I did not, however, remember to check the truck tires and put everything away when I was done; until I was writing this part of the blog much later in the evening.

The group of Common Murres, center-frame, are guarding a chick.

This is what the North Atlantic Ocean does on a relatively calm day.

Skip ahead to 8:30 PM.  With darkness coming on fast, I went out to check one of the tires.  I selected the driver side drive tire.  It was 38.5 psi.  Well, that ain’t right, folks.  I checked the driver side steer tire and it was 42.5 psi.  I had not driven on them for at least 4 hours, and I was pretty sure the Ford dealer had actually rotated them based on visible tire wear, so I concluded that the technician had not, in fact, adjusted the pressures as I requested, if indeed the service writer ever passed that information along.  To say that I was not happy would be an understatement.

I got Linda to help me by using her phone as a flashlight and got the VIAIR air-compressor back out.  Naturally, it’s stored in the most inaccessible place in the bed of the truck, but then I very rarely need to use it.  I inflated the driver-side rear tire to 48.0 psi and bled it down to 45.0 psi  I then bled the driver-side front tire down to 41.0 psi.  I repeated this for the passenger side.  By this point I was not feeling the whole “living the adventure” aspect of this situation, but it definitely fell into the “you gotta do what you gotta do” category and, upon some reflection (looking for silver linings) we had just avoided a potential disaster of hauling the trailer with under-inflated drive tires.  Another positive was that the compressor is easy to use, works well, and is relatively quiet.  It also stores nicely in its own bag.

The Witless Bay Ecological Reserve Islands.  This photo is a composite of two photos, made with Microsoft’s Image Composite Editor.

PHOTO – 590x393_14_…  Linda and fishing boats as our O’Brien’s tour boat returns to dock.

Linda and fishing boats as our O’Brien’s tour boat returns to dock.

As a final check, and partly to satisfy my own curiosity, I turned the ignition on in the truck to see what the integral TPMS would report.  42 psi for both steer tires, 46 psi for both drive tires.  So, it appears that the technician DID reprogram the position of the tires, which is a big deal, but did NOT adjust the pressures.  Linda said the outside ambient air temperature was 58 deg F, so these were good settings, and I can live with the 1 psi discrepancy between my digital air pressure gauge and the integral Ford system.  The minimum pressure to support the maximum load is 39 psi for all four tires and the maximum cold inflation pressure for the tires/wheels is 50 psi.  I like to the run them higher when towing, especially the drive tires, as that axle is near its GAWR, and the higher pressure makes the tires stiffer which results in better handling.

But I digress.  After dinner I still had a solid, usable Internet connection via the Park Wi-Fi.  First, I transferred today’s photos from the SONY a99 to my laptop.  I then finished editing the blog post for yesterday, adding in the photo references and writing the captions, before uploading, assembling, and publishing it.  I then turned my attention to the post for today, but have the detour to deal with the tire pressures, it was clear that I was not going to get it written and get the photos selected, processed, and captioned before bedtime.

Our time here in Pippy Park is coming to an end, and tomorrow is a big travel day.  Our destination is Sanger Memorial RV Park in Grand Falls-Windsor, some 420 km (~260 m) west on the Trans-Canada Highway.

…

SATURDAY 20 August

(NOTE:  There are 17 photos in this post, all but one of which have to do with our visit to the NHS.  They are distributed throughout the post with captions.)

We had bright sun when I got up but dark clouds in the west.  This combination always makes for dramatic lighting.  And what better to photograph than a 2020 Airstream Flying Cloud and a Ford F-150.

I slept in this morning and finally got up around 7:45 AM.  Linda got up just before me, so she made our morning coffee.  I checked to see if my computer would connect to the park Wi-Fi.  It wouldn’t, but I did not expect that anything had changed since last night.  For breakfast, I had one of my (vegan) raspberry strudel sticks and Linda had a piece of the molasses raisin bread we bought at Sobeys the other day.  We both took showers, after which I dumped the contents of the waste tanks.

This is a composite image of Ferryland Harbor.  The Colony of Avalon archeological site is at the right side at the base of the hill, inside the small protected harbor.

The main building for the NHS.   It houses: admission, museum, archeology lab, and administration for the Foundation.

This photo gives an idea of the arrangement and appearance of the museum in the main building.  It was very nicely done and the main public display of artifacts was here.

An iPadOS update (15.6.1) was available, so we installed it on both of our tablets.  In looking at the network configuration of my iPad Pro, I noticed that it was using IPv6 on a 5 GHz Wi-Fi band.  I presumed that Linda’s iPad was doing the same.  I wondered if the problem we were having with our laptop computers might be related to IPv4, or perhaps to a 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi band.  I had checked last night, and my laptop computer is configured to use both IPv4 and IPv6, so it seemed unlikely that this was the problem.  I checked my phone this morning, and it was connected to the Pippy Park Wi-Fi on a 2.4 GHz, band, so the loss of 2.4 GHz service did not appear to be the problem either.  It’s “a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.”  (Winston Churchill).

This is the other non-historic building that is part of the NHS.  It houses: Tetley’s Tea Room (restaurant and tea bar), dinner theater, gift shop, and 17th-Century Kitchen.

In thinking about our last two full days in the St. John’s, Newfoundland area, we knew we wanted to visit the Lord Baltimore’s 1623 Avalon Colony National Historic Site.  It’s south of Witless Bay, and we will be in that area tomorrow for a boat trip to see the Witless Bay Ecological Reserve, so our initial thought was to do both things tomorrow.  But we also wanted to return to Peaceful Loft this evening for an early dinner (before 5 PM) and possibly do laundry later in the day tomorrow.  The weather forecast for today and tomorrow was good, and we decided to just do the extra driving and visit the Avalon Colony NHS today.  Google maps said it would take about an hour and 15 minutes to get there.

This is the beginning of the site of the archeological dig at the end of the harbor and the base of a large hill.

There was wind in the forecast for today, because there is always wind in the forecast here.  We closed up the trailer and turned on one of the heat pumps in cooling mode, just to make sure it didn’t get too warm.  We made sure Juniper-the-cat had her afternoon meal in her food bowl and plenty of water in her water bowl, and were out the door by 10:30 AM.

The flat stones are the original forge.  The tow wooden posts in front would have been the location of the anvil, quench pot, and other smithing apparatus.  The two tall poles in the back mark the likely location of the bellows support.  The retaining walls correspond to the location of the original building.

Most of the drive was on Hwy-10, which was eventually also signed as “The Irish Loop.”  And no sooner did we see the first such sign, we began seeing businesses, and signs for businesses, as well as road names of Irish derivation.  Hwy-10 was a basic 2-lane road.  The speed limit was sometimes 80 km/hr, but frequently dropped to 50 km/hr, and often for quite a few kilometers.  It repeatedly climbed to high ground and dropped back down close to sea level at towns nestled at the ends of bays, and was rarely straight.  In other words, a fun road to drive.  What we did not see on the drive, or when we arrived at the Avalon Colony National Historic Site, were the Parks Canada signs with “Parky the Beaver.”

This photo shows the excavation occurring on at least three different levels (depths).  It was amazing how deeply buried the site was after “only” 400 years.  Our tour guide explained that sites such as this colony often abandoned after being attacked or suffering damage from weather.  But people often returned and rebuilt on top of what was already there.  The layering that occurs from this multiple use over time is both challenging and interesting for the archeologists.  Note the white house in the background with the travel trailer to its right.  The owner of this house is the person who found some “interesting bits and pieces” while digging for worms on his property.  He took them to the archeology department at Memorial University where they were immediately recognized as significant finds.  Permission was granted to dig three test holes.  The first one was where the travel trailer is now parked.  The archeologists new immediately that this was an old site of great importance,  probably the lost Avalon Colony.

This photo shows what remains of the walls of one of the buildings.  The buildings here were made from stacked stone and had slate roofs.  They had fireplaces that served for heating and cooking, and their locations are clearly visible.

The site included a museum and offered a guided tour of the archeological site for 13$ / person (senior rate), which we gladly paid as our Parks Canada Family Discovery Pass did not apply here.  (I looked this up later in the day and found the following from the Wikipedia entry National Historic Sites of Canada – “As of July 2021, there were 999 National Historic Sites, 172 of which are administered by Parks Canada; the remainder are administered or owned by other levels of government or private entities.”)  The museum required the paid admission, but we could have visited the “dig “ for free.

This photo shows the excavation working its way up the hill.  Evidence indicates that the main part of the colony was surrounded by a palisade (wooden post wall) about seven feet high.  It was not clear to us if the archeological work here has yet determined the complete scope of the colony, especially outside the palisade.

The Lord Baltimore 1623 Avalon Colony NHs is owned and operated by the Avalon Colony Foundation, although the National Trust for Canada seems to also be involved.  The site itself is located on a natural harbor and there were two modern buildings, lots of parking, and the archeological dig site.  One building contained the reception area, museum, archeology lab, and administration functions.  The other building contained Tetley’s Tea House (a restaurant and tea bar), a dinner theater, a gift shop, and a “17^th Century Kitchen.”  The archeological site was a short walk down to the end of the harbor from the second building, so everything was in close proximity.

The archeologists are fairly sure that this was the house of Lord Baltimore.  It’s larger than the others, and was a full 2-story building.

We had an hour to wait for the next tour, so we watched a short film about the discovery of the site and the archeological work that has taken place to date.  When took our time in the museum reading about the history of the place and looking at the artifacts on display.  We learned that I   n 1623, Sir George Calvert (Later Lord Baltimore) obtained a charter for this part of southeast “New-found-land” and named the peninsula after the Arthurian Isle of Avalon.  However, cod fishing had been taking place along this coast since at least the early 1500’s by Basque, Portuguese, and French fisherman, and eventually English fisherman as well.  The practice at the time, however, was to “wet salt” the fish and keep them in the hold of the ship until returning home.  Calvert sought to establish a permanent settlement and land-based drying racks came into use there.

Careful inspection of this photo will show rocks in the upper middle portion arranged running from a little upper right to a little lower left.  This was done for drainage.  There are also drainage stones just in front of the horizontal timber, running from the right edge of the frame to the left.

Some of the history of what happened here, and when, was known but the exact location of the colony had been lost to time.  The story that fascinated us was the discovery of the site in the 1990s, and the archeology that has taken place here since then, and is still on-going today.  The initial archeological work was under the direction of an archeologist from Memorial University (which happens to be located adjacent to Pippy Park).  We got the impression that archeologists and archeology students from there are still very much involved in the on-going work.  There are even programs for visitors to participate for an hour or a day.

Avalon Colony had a cobblestone street, parts of which have been excavated.  Based on what has been done so far, they know that most of the street lies under the modern paved street that is now part of the working harbor.

We were glad we went on the walking tour of the “dig”.  There were only four of us, and the young man doing the tour did a nice job of explaining what we were seeing at each stop.  Had we been here on a weekday, we might have seen archeologists working the site, and been able to see the lab.  Timing really is everything.

This building was at sea level and was the working dock and storeroom.  Waste flowed down to here and was (in principle) washed away with the tide.

As the physical structure of the site has been revealed, and artifacts unearthed and identified, they have led to a deep insight into early colonial English life in North America.  The following sites provide more information:

From Parks Canada (www.pc.gc.ca)  “Colony of Avalon National Historic Site of Canada is a 17^th-century archaeological site 60 kilometres south of St. John’s, Newfoundland.”

From the Colony of Avalon Foundation (colonyofavalon.ca) “Colony of Avalon in Ferryland Newfoundland is a premiere historical destination and archeology dig.”

From the National Trust for Canada (nationaltrustcanada.ca)  “The Colony of Avalon is recognized as the best preserved early English colonial site in North America.  Today, on-going work at the Colony is changing the way we understand the past.”

The gardener had a house outside the palisade, perhaps because they arrived later and there was no more room inside the enclosure.  Shown here is a recreation of what the garden probably looked like.  Of note is the “woven” fence.

We spent a few minutes in the gift shop and Linda bought a Puffin Christmas tree ornament.  The 17^th-Century Kitchen is normally part of the tour, but they were short-staffed, and the “cook” was minding the gift shop.

Modern day fishing boats moored in the inner harbor.

When we concluded our visit, we decided to head directly to the Peaceful Loft restaurant in St. John’s for an early dinner.  What we found when we got there was that downtown St. John’s on a lovely Saturday afternoon was a madhouse of people.  What we did not find was a place to park.  Linda’s foot was sore from our long hike yesterday and we decided to bale out on our dinner plans and return to camp.  We considered going to Blaze Pizza for an early dinner, but decided to dine in.  While Linda prepared our dinner, I powered up my laptop and was thrilled that my computer connected to the park Wi-Fi!  We were not here all day, so I have no idea what, if anything, someone might have done with the system.  I only had time before dinner to check my e-mail and back up some files.  I set the computer aside, but did not shut it down.

This is a view from the north end of the colony site looking out through Ferryland Harbor to the North Atlantic Ocean. The first gap from the right was the only navigable passage out to the ocean.  Everything to the left is a chain of islands that are connect to the mainland with shallow water depths in-between.

Dinner was a simple affair of fish fillets with tartar sauce, Daiya Deluxe Cheddar Style Cheezy Mac, orange juice, and fresh strawberries.  All vegan, of course.  We had some Skinny Pop microwave popcorn later in the evening for a snack.

When I went to use my computer again, it had disconnected from the park Wi-Fi and would not reconnect. I ran the Windows networking trouble-shooter and tried shutting down and restarting my computer, but nothing worked.  I concluded that the park has a serious problem with their Wi-Fi Router,  which is not going to get fixed before we leave on Monday morning, and I did not need to spend any more time dealing with it.  I connected my Pixel 6 Pro to the park Wi-Fi (which worked great) and then turned on the hotspot feature and connected my computer to that (which also worked great).  I had access to unlimited high-speed Internet on my computer, and was able to efficiently upload and assemble the blog post for yesterday.  In spite of this technology glitch, we both still really like this campground.

…

FRIDAY 19 August

(NOTE:  This post covers three different things.  It has 14 photos.  All but one of them have to do with the middle thing, but they are spread throughout the post.  All of the photos have captions.)

It rained overnight, hard at times, but was finished by sunrise. Our normal morning routine was altered today as I had an early appointment to take the F-150 in for an oil change, tire rotation, and brake check.  I needed to have the truck at the dealership between 7:30 and 7:45 AM, so I was up at 6 AM, fed the cat, made a cup of coffee (half-caff), had a raspberry strudel stick (vegan) and got dressed; all as quietly as possible so as not to wake Linda.

Linda was still asleep when I left around 7:25 AM.  I was at Cabot Ford Lincoln by 7:40 AM but wasn’t completely clear on the process and had to ask someone where to park the truck.  When I went inside to the service desk, I was 6^th in line, and it was obvious that a number of customers had already been processed.  So, I didn’t really have an appointment, as such, but I was part of the expected work load for the first half of the morning.  It was a scene from our long distant past, as this is how Tom Holzer Ford in Farmington Hills, Michigan handled their service department.  I asked the service writer, Mitchell, if they could do the SYNC 3 update and the navigation system map update and he said he would check on it.  I also indicated that I did not run the tires at the standard pressures, and asked that they set the front tires to 41 psi and the rear tires to 45 PSI.

This is the sign as you come up Signal Hill Road that welcomes you to the eponymously named National Historic Site.  I actually photographed it as we were walking up to the visitor center parking lot at the end of our hike.

Cabot Ford Lincoln is a large, and very nice dealership, with two customer lounge areas.  The main one, near the service desk, had a counter seating area with a microwave oven, coffee dispensers, a TV, and several waiting service customers.  At the other end of the building was a smaller area with a large window behind a 2-person sofa, two individual chairs, a corner table, and a desk with a computer.  No one was there, so I got a cup of coffee and sat there, by myself, in peace and quiet.

I brought my iPad Pro and used the guest Wi-Fi, which was very good.  In the time I was sitting there, I managed to clear out all of my pending Facebook notifications and most of the entries in my g-mail account.  Even then, g-mail says I’ve used 86% of my 15 GB storage allowance, so I will have to figure out why that percentage is so high and what to do about it.  They are willing to sell me more storage, of course, but that is not the solution I want.  A check of Google Photos indicated that I have only used 40 MB of my 15 GB photo storage allowance, and yet I have a LOT of photos there. ???  It appears that these are separate storage pools, but I don’t actually know if that is the case.

The car was ready at 10:15 AM with a fresh charge of full-synthetic oil, a new oil filter, and the tires rotated and set to the pressures I had requested.  Mitchell said they had to replace the oil drain plug as it was “going bad.”  That’s an unusual part to have fail, but inexpensive enough to replace, and not something I would want to have fail on the road.  He also pointed out that the rear brakes were at 6 mm; still OK, but will likely need to be serviced not long after we return home in October.  He was not able to find anyone who knew how to do the SYNC 3 and map updates, and the shop foreman was off today, so he couldn’t ask him.  Oh well, If I can’t figure it out once we are home, I will have Brighton Ford take care of it.  I can make actual service appointments there, with a specified drop-off time.

A composite image of St. John’s Harbor and City from Signal Hill National Historic Site, Newfoundland.  Six separate images were combined to get this photo.  This photo is 1550×374 pixels.  Click to see it enlarged.

When I got back to the trailer around 10:30 AM, Linda had been up for a while, had coffee and breakfast, and cleaned the trailer, including mopping the floor.  It’s a small space, and we try to keep it neat and tidy, but it is also a “camper” and needs to be cleaned regularly.  The cat is part of that as she plays in her water bowl and tracks water and litter on the floor.  Still, it’s a small space and does not take a lot of time to clean.  Linda was also ready to go do something and been looking at possible options.  We considered several National Historic Sites in the Avalon Peninsula, but they were either long drives, minor sites, or close to someplace we already planned to be on Sunday.

A view of Cabot Tower towards the beginning of our loop hike to Quidi Vidi Village (Kiddy Viddy) from the National Historic Site visitor center.

The weather was nice, with partly cloudy skies and forecasted high temperatures in the 70’s, and we really wanted to do some easy hiking.  We decided to return to the Signal Hill NHS visitor center and hike down to the village of Quidi Vidi (Kiddy Vidi), along Quidi Vidi lake, and back to the NHS visitor center, which involved several different named trails and some roads.  Our research suggested this would be an easy loop hike of about 6.5 km (~ 4 mi).  We would likely not be back in time for Juniper-the-cat’s afternoon meal, so we left it for her before we took off, and checked that she had ample water.

A view of Cape Spear from the trail up to Cabot Tower.  The Cape is the faint sliver of land at center frame, left.

The drive over to the NHS meanders through St. John’s, which we enjoy.  From the end of the NHS visitor center we took the “green” trail, which took us back up past the Queen’s Batter to Cabot Tower.  From there, we took the trail from the end of the parking lot up to “Ladies Lookout,” which is actually the highest point on Signal Hill, and was the site of a decisive victory by the British over the French that finally secured St. John’s for the British.  The story of Ladies Lookout is that women from St. John’s climbed up here to look for the returning ships of “husbands, sons, and lovers.”  They must have been very fit, because it was quite a climb getting up there.  This was clearly not going to be the “easy” hike we had anticipated.  From Ladies Lookout, the trail was downhill all the way to Quidi Vidi Village, but it was a long and beautiful hike along the rugged coastline of the NHS.

The previous four photos were of views we had seen on our first visit to NHS, but under very different weather conditions.  Starting with this photo, the views were new to us.  The “Ladies Lookout to Quidi Vidi Trail” went over the highest point in the Signal Hill NHS and then dropped all the way to the village of Quidi Vidi, at sea level.  The coastline was beautiful and dramatic and I was glad to have good light and sky.

Once we got to the Village, the food court area we had seen the other day was open.  There were several food trucks and a brewery tent, and there were lots of people about, but it was not crowded.  It was 1:30 PM and we were both a bit hungry.  We split a falafel sandwich from the Global Eats food truck and it was good.  Linda had hibiscus tea and I had ginger lemonade.

The trail was steep, but Parks Canada had provided very good wooden staircases where needed, and observation platforms at key viewpoints.

Quidi Vidi Village is sort of wrapped around Quidi Vidi Harbor, a small fishing harbor with a narrow passage to the ocean.  After lunch, we walked up to Quidi Vidi Lake, which sits about 15 m (~49 ft) above sea level.  A massive amount of water was cascading out of the lake into the harbor below, so we presume the lake was actually part of a river or has some other sources of significant inflow.  A trail goes all the way around the Lake, but the trail back to the NHS visitor center came off the far-left end, so we went that way.  Many portions of the trail along the Lake had very nice boardwalks and everywhere else it was gravel, so easy walking.

From the Boathouse, we headed away from the Lake, straight up.  Okay, that’s an exaggeration, but we immediately started gaining back a lot the altitude we had given up coming down to Quidi Vidi from Ladies Lookout.  The NHS visitor center is well above sea level, so we new we would have an uphill hike to get back to it.

In spite of having gotten a trail map at the NHS visitor center, taken pictures of map signs, and having Linda track our progress on her smartphone, we had confusion at several trail intersections about which way to go.  In the end we got back to the Johnson Eco-Center, although we had planned to take a trail directly back to the visitor center.  No matter; either way we had to gain elevation.  From there, we had a short, but steep, hike along the road back to the NHS visitor center.

This flight of stairs dropped straight down for a long way before reaching a landing and changing direction to the left.  The water in the upper left corner of the photo is a small portion of Quidi Vidi Lake.

For the hike, Linda recorded ~10,500 steps (~ 5 miles) on her Fitbit, which indicated that we had done 66 flights of stairs, or about 660 feet.  (The Fitbit uses air pressure to determine changes in altitude, and considers a “flight of stairs” to be a pressure change equivalent to 10 feet of elevation change.)  While neither of us considered this to be an easy hike, we were pleased with how we did.

This headland jutted out into the ocean just before our final descent into Quidi Vidi Village.  I think the other side of it (to the left) forms the southern edge of the narrow entrance to Quidi Vidi Harbor.

We were back in camp by 3:30 PM and I was eager to upload my posts for yesterday and then get to work processing the photos from today and writing the blog post, but my Windows 10 laptop could not connect to the Pippy Park Wi-Fi.  What?  It’s been solid and fast the whole time we’ve been here and was working great late last night before I turned off my machine.  Both of our phones and both of our iPads were able to connect.

I ran the Windows network “troubleshooter” and got the message “ ‘Wi-Fi’ has an invalid IP configuration. ”  What?  That was the first time I had ever seen this status message.  Normally, the troubleshooter has been able to fix network problems by resetting the wireless adapter card, but not this time.

This is a composite image of three photos that starts on the left with the tip of the headland in the previous photo, and then pans to the right.

To check if I had a Wi-Fi adapter problem, I turned on my phone’s hotspot.  My laptop found it right away and had no problem connecting to it.  As a final check, Linda turned on her laptop computer, which is quite a bit newer than mine, and hasn’t been hooked to the park Wi-Fi since we got here.  She got the same result I did.  Ugh.  I was at loss to understand why iPadOS and Android devices could connect to the system (and get Internet service) but two different Windows 10 laptops, from two different manufacturers, made at two very different times, could not.

Our view of Quidi Vidi on our final descent into the Village.  This has been a small, but active fishing harbor and town for a long time and has the quaint architectural charm to you expect, or at least hope to find in such a place.

Linda needed to update our financial information, and always connects to the hotspot on her phone for this, so she took care of that while her machine was on.  I had writing and photo editing to do, neither of which required an Internet connection, so I carried on with my work.

Someone was in the park working on the Wi-Fi system the other day, but everything was still working fine after they left.  Around 5:30 PM we decided to walk down to the registration area to report our problem and see if they had any information.  We talked to a nice young man who took our info and site number and texted everything to his supervisor.  He indicated that Bell Aliant provides the fiber-optic Internet feed to the park (I knew it had to be fiber-optic!) and that they were in here again today and probably messed something up.  We chatted with him for quite a while about our time in Newfoundland and how much we liked it.

A view of part of Quidi Vidi Harbor.  A mix of working and pleasure boats tied up by simple, but nice, dockside buildings.  The exit from the harbor to the ocean is at the right edge of the photo.

We had just gotten back to our trailer when a staff member came by in a golf cart.  I flagged her down to let her know that we did not have a black plastic liner bag for trash can (every site here has its own trash can).  She had some in the cart and put one in, but she was actually on her way to reset the Wi-Fi, which originates in a small building in our section of the campground (again, as I suspected).  She did that and then came back to our trailer to see if we were now able to connect.  We were not.  She was checking the signal on her phone, and said it appeared to be very slow.  We hope they are able to get this resolved tomorrow but, if not, it was good while it lasted.  I will try to upload blog posts by connecting to the hotspot on my phone, but my daily data allowance is a meager 500 MB.

Quidi Vidi Harbor is at sea level (of course) but Quidi Vidi Lake is at 15m (~49 ft) above sea level.  A lot of water was pouring out of the lake and down this cascade into the harbor below.  This led me to presume that the lake was probably a river with a dam, and there were two weirs just ahead of the cascade.  A Google search after we got back to camp filled in the missing details.  The Maritime Barrens Ecoregion is a 49.1 square kilometer watershed that drains into the lake.  The heavy rains of the last couple of days probably contributed to the significant outflow from the lake while we were there.

I continued to work and Linda continued to read into the evening.  We had some color in the clouds for sunset, which was nice, but nothing photo worthy.  The rain was out of the forecast for the time being, but the winds were strong and grew in strength.  Some of the gusts rocked the trailer, a little bit.

Before giving up and going to bed I decided to hotspot my phone.  Before turning on the feature I noticed that the description said I could use the hotspot feature to share a “Wi-Fi or mobile connection.”  Interesting; I had always presumed that the phone could EITHER connect to an external Wi-Fi source OR be a Wi-Fi source.  It never occurred to me that it could do both.  My phone was already connected to the Pippy Park Wi-Fi and I figured I had nothing to lose, so I turned on the hotspot feature.  A short time later my hotspot appeared on my computer in the list of available Wi-Fi networks.  I selected it and the connection was quickly established.  Wow.

I saw this scene on our final hike up Signal Hill Road from the Johnson Geo-Center to the Signal Hill NHS Visitor Center. The pink flowers are fireweed.  It’s found all over Newfoundland, but we never tire of seeing it.

With this new found connectivity, I was able to upload all three blog posts for Thursday, August 18, 2022 and delete the 60+ spam comments that had accumulated since the last time I did this a day or so ago, AND check my e-mail, AND log in to our web-hosting service to release or delete all of the e-mails that were trapped in the SPAM filter (I’ve been trying to do this more frequently so list isn’t so long).  And, just in case I was inadvertently using my cellular data, I got all of that done before midnight, which is when my 400 MB cellular data allowance gets reset.  I would still prefer to connect my computer directly to the park Wi-Fi, but knowing that I have a viable work-around removed a lot of stress just before I went to bed.  I like it when that happens as I sleep better.

Our Airstream Flying Cloud travel trailer at Pippy Park CG, St. John’s, Newfoundland.  The first day we’ve had here with lots of blue sky.

….

WEDNESDAY 17 August

(There are 16 photos in this post, all having to do with the National Historic Site.  The weather was heavy overcast with mist around the tops of the hills.  The photos are the best I could do in these conditions.)

We both stayed in bed this morning until about 7 AM when I finally got up to feed the cat and make our morning coffee.  Linda was up before the water had come to a boil.  With the excellent Internet we have here, there’s no need to be up before the sun to get online.  Breakfast was bagels.  We had not yet formulated a plan for the day, beyond two things that I wanted to accomplish first thing.

Number one was finding out what I needed to do to get the oil changed in the F-150.  To that end, I drove to Cabot Ford Lincoln on Kenmount Road, just a few miles from our campground.  Kenmount Road turned out to be “auto dealer row,” along with “shopping road.”  The Avalon Mall was there, as well as lots of small strip malls with all kinds of businesses, including food and drink establishments.  I stopped at an Irving fuel station on the way and noticed a Blaze Pizza next door.  We might have to go there while we are in town.

Part of the information display area of the Visitor Center at the Signal Hill National Historic Site in St. John’s, Newfoundland.

The Ford dealership was very nice.  And, yes, I needed an appointment, so the service writer set me up for first thing Friday morning.  While not “technically” necessary according to Ford’s service intervals, I’ve always figured that oil is the least expensive preventative maintenance I can do on an engine, and we’ve been pulling the trailer through mountainous terrain since beginning of July.  It will be full synthetic plus an oil filter, of course.  They will also rotate the tires and check the brakes.  The rear tires are more worn than the front tires at this point, and checking the brakes is just prudent.  Given our mileage to date, we will put more than 10,000 miles on the truck by the time we get home, and it will be time for another oil change.

Back at camp, I finally called Woodland Airstream and talked to Joyce, who coordinates service appointments and warranty claims.  I was pleased to find that Erich, the service manager, had put me on the schedule to drop the trailer off on Monday, October 17 based on the conversations and text message we exchanged back in May.  I need to send Joyce our list of repair issues so she can start to investigate warranty eligibility.  I planned to do that this evening or tomorrow morning.

A view of the Signal Hill NHS Visitor Center looking ~SE (I think).

Linda had been checking the weather and considering our options for the day.  It looked like the serious rain would not start until sometime after 5 PM.  The Signal Hill National Historic Site was one of the things we wanted to do in the area.  It was just on the north side of St. John’s Harbor, only 15 – 20 minutes away, and that’s where we decided to go.  Another incredible Parks Canada site, Signal Hill NHS sits atop a hill on the north side of the entrance to the Narrows which leads into St. Johns Harbor.  Like always, we started at the Visitor Center and learned that the hill stands 167 m (~543 ft) above the North Atlantic Ocean, and the location has a long and significant history for many reasons.

Our first view of St. John’s, Newfoundland, from the Visitor Center at the Signal Hill NHS.

The small building, upper left, is the Powder Magazine (reconstruction) for the Queen’s Battery located to its right behind the hill.

A view of St. John’s Harbor and Town from the trail leading to the Queen’s Battery.

First, it is believed that John Cabot’s (Giovanni Caboto) 1497 expedition, under the patronage of King Henry the VII of England, landed at this location on the far eastern shore of present-day Newfoundland.  The more supported supposition is that the expedition made first landfall in what is now southern Labrador and then explored along the northern and eastern coast of Newfoundland before arriving at the entrance to St. John’s Harbor.

From Wikipedia ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John Cabot ):  “To mark the celebration of the 500th anniversary of Cabot’s expedition, both the Canadian and British governments elected Cape Bonavista, Newfoundland as representing Cabot’s first landing site. However, alternative locations have also been proposed.”  It is generally accepted that the men in Cabot’s expedition were the first Europeans to set foot in what is now North America since the Norse explorations of Vinland and the establishment of the Viking Settlement at L’Anse-aux-Meadows by Leif Erickson 500 years earlier.  St. John’s has been inhabited ever since by people not of native origin, making it the longest continuously inhabited, and the easternmost, city in North America.

A wider view of St. John’s and the harbor from the Signal Hill NHS.

PHOTO – 300x398_Heather-at-SH-NHS … There was a wonderful variety of low vegetation at the site.  This small, light purple, plant is common heather (Calluna vulgaris).  (From Wikipedia, it “is the sole species in the genus Calluna in the flowering plant family Ericaceae.”)  It was everywhere at this site, but this was the first place we have seen it during our travels.

There was a wonderful variety of low vegetation at the site.  This small, light purple, plant is common heather (Calluna vulgaris).  (From Wikipedia, it “is the sole species in the genus Calluna in the flowering plant family Ericaceae.”)  It was everywhere at this site, but this was the first place we have seen it during our travels.

But that was just the beginning.  The waters off the east coast of Newfoundland were an incredibly rich fishery that ultimately drew the French and the English to these shores.  The long periods of conflict between England and France were contested all over the globe, and St. John’s became one of those places in North America.  Signal Hill occupied an incredibly strategic location and was eventually developed for military purposes to defend the Narrows leading into St. John’s Harbor.  There was a matching fort on the hill on the south side of the Narrows.  These two sites changed hands between the British and the French until the British finally prevailed, as they did elsewhere in North America.

A view from  trail looking up towards Cabot Tower (top-left) and the Powder Magazine (top-center/right).  This was very representative of the appearance of the site as we climbed closer to the top of Signal Hill.

A view of the Basilica Cathedral of St. John the Baptist and surrounding Ecclesiastical District in St. John’s, Newfoundland, as seen from Signal Hill.

Once the territorial dispute was settled, Signal Hill developed as a location for signaling ships approaching the Narrows and signaling St. John’s about the arrival of such ships, and it is from this period that the location got its name.  This signaling was done with flags, and Signal Hill is the site of the Cabot Tower, built between 1898 and 1900 to continue the port signaling service which originated in 1704; flag signaling continued from the deck of Cabot Tower until 1958.

While the Signal Hill NHS offered plenty of “grand views,” my eye was offered pulled towards smaller details of the site, such as this rock surrounded by heather.

But something else historic took place here on December 12, 1901 when Guglielmo Marconi received the first transoceanic wireless signal from a station in Poldhu, Cornwall, England in a former military barracks on Signal Hill.

The site saw a resumption of military activity during WWI, but became a significant site once again during WWII as St. John’s was the final staging area for the merchant marine convoys and their naval escorts departing for England.  These convoys, along with trans-Atlantic aviation, were the supply lines that made the Allied presence in Europe possible.

This view of the Signal Hill NHS Visitor Center, looking west from above on the trail, gives a context to its location.

The communications capabilities in place at Signal Hill by that time played a major support role in the Battle of the Atlantic.   From Wikipedia:  “The Battle of the Atlantic, the longest continuous military campaign in World War II, ran from 1939 to the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945, covering a major part of the naval history of World War II.”

The approach to Cabot Tower from the parking lot.  My particular interest in this site and tower was its role in communications; first, signaling with flags, and then, its historic role in the first wireless (RF) trans-Atlantic communication.  Marconi was here (as the saying goes).  The Tower has two floors and a roof deck, all open to the public.  The first floor is a gift shop and the second floor is an information display on Marconi and wireless communications.  It was this room where Marconi actually had equipment set up.  An amateur radio station is located here.

As a Canadian National Historic Site, all of this history is available to visitors, and the parking lots at the Visitor Center and Cabot Tower were crowded on this Wednesday in August.  But there are also lots of hiking trails, and some of the best views of St. John’s and its harbor.  We bought several T-shirts in the Cabo Tower gift shop.  (An unusual purchase for me, to be sure, but they had one that I liked.)

The amateur radio (ham) station in one corner of the 2nd floor of Cabot Tower.  A local amateur radio club maintains and operates this station and a display case contained some of their QSL cards.

When we were done at Signal Hill, we drove around to Quidi Vidi just to the north.  It was a charming little enclave reached on narrow, twisting, steep roads.  The main area had lots of food trucks and what looked like a festival green, but there was no obvious place to park, and lots of “no parking” signs.  We are always a little puzzled by places like this that seem to want to be a tourist destination, but lack the ability to accommodate tourists.  It was drive-through experience for us.

The information display on the 2nd floor of the Cabot Tower.  This room originally held Marconi’s wireless communication equipment and operator stations.

Both Signal Hill and Quidi Vidi were north and east of our RV park, so one of them (probably Quidi Vidi) was now the farthest east we have traveled, but I did not capture GPS coordinates.  The farthest east point of land in all of North America is Cape Speer, again north and east of our RV park.  It’s a bit farther than we ventured today, about 15 miles, and we plan to make it there before we leave the area next Monday.

This plaque, in the entrance to the Cabot Tower, marks the 500th anniversary of John Cabot’s discovery of Newfoundland and the 60th year of Queen Victoria’s reign.

Before returning to Pippy Park, we meandered through St. John’s without the aid of the electronic navigation, eventually reaching Kenmount Road where I started my day at the Cabot Ford Lincoln dealership.  I wanted Linda to see what was available in              this area in terms of any shopping we might want/need to do.  A quick search located a Sobeys nearby, but not on Kenmount Road.  To get back to camp, I wanted to take Prince Philip Dr. as it passes through the main Memorial University campus.  I missed the turn, if a turn was even possible.  Elizabeth Avenue was my back up plan (that’s how I came back from the Ford dealership this morning.  I missed that turn as well, so our route ended up being Freshwater Rd. to Empire Ave. to Allendale Ave. and then Nagle’s Pl. and the entrance to the campground.  It was actually nice to miss turns and not have to worry about.  When towing the trailer (or driving the bus with the car behind it) missing turns is a BIG DEAL.

PHOTO – 590x533_NL-as-cntr-world …  I really liked this graphic on an information board outside of Cabot Tower.  (I altered the colors to make the water light blue and the land a slight tan.)  It shows St. John’s, Newfoundland at the center of the largest circle, with concentric circles going out from there.  Just above the center is the North Pole.  Meridians radiate out from there and it is encircled by lines of latitude.  It was a unique way to visualize Newfoundland & Labrador’s “place” in the world.

I really liked this graphic on an information board outside of Cabot Tower.  (I altered the colors to make the water light blue and the land a slight tan.)  It shows St. John’s, Newfoundland at the center of the largest circle, with concentric circles going out from there.  Just above the center is the North Pole.  Meridians radiate out from there and it is encircled by lines of latitude.  It was a unique way to visualize Newfoundland & Labrador’s “place” in the world.

We were back at our trailer by 4:30 PM and ready for dinner, so Linda heated up the leftovers from last night.  They were just as good the second time around.  We had the two oranges from the restaurant for dessert.  Early evening, we started to get a light, intermittent drizzle but it eventually turned into a full-on rain event.  Not a storm as such (no lightning or thunder), although the government weather service said a thunderstorm was possible after midnight.  It was not a torrential downpour, but a total accumulation of 10 – 20 mm (0.4 to 0.8 in) was expected by morning.  Eastern Canada, in general, and Newfoundland, in particular, really needs rain and this system looked to produce quite a bit over a large portion of the island over the next few days.  We will adjust our outings accordingly.

Linda read most of the evening while I worked at my computer.  I shot 105 photos on my Pixel 6 Pro today, so I had a bit larger task than usual selecting ones for this post and processing them.  Later in the evening we popped a bag of Smart Pop microwave popcorn.

…

MONDAY 15 August

A final look at the pond across from our site at the County Inn Motel & RV Park in Gander, Newfoundland.  (This was not representative of our views, in general.)

We woke to a pleasant morning, with scattered clouds, sunshine, and cool temperatures.  Our five nights in Gander had come to an end and it was time to move on.  Although more time than we needed, it was a good place from which to explore the area.  We also had convenient access to shopping, and it turned out to be a good place to just sit and rest and continue to recover from our bout with COVID-19.  Had we not been ill, we would likely have done some additional exploring.

Yesterday, a 5^th-wheel trailer pulled into the site to our right and we recognized the owners as the couple we had met at the Long Point Lighthouse in Crow Head the other day.  They were leaving this morning as well, and I got a chance to chat briefly with the husband before the pulled out ahead of us.

We each had one cup of coffee (mine was half-caff) and for breakfast a bowl of cereal with blueberries.  With a 10:15 AM departure target, we took about an hour to get ready to leave, and actually pulled out of the Country Inn Motel & RV Park at 10:33 AM. We would have been out on time, but spent 15 minutes trying to enter an address for our next destination into the F-150 navigation system, without success.

Sometimes the entry in  the GPS database (if it exists at all) is different from what it “should” be, and unless we enter it just right, we get the “no matches found” message.  We tried searching for “Bellevue Beach Campground” and it found one, in Kentucky, USA.  Really?  Surely the GPS knows we are in Newfoundland, Canada.

We could have entered the GPS coordinates, which Linda had, but we weren’t sure how to do that with the system built into the F-150.  Besides, Linda could see clearly on her phone exactly how to get there, so we did not want to take the time to figure it out right then and there.  It is, however, something we need to figure out how to do.

The route was really simple:  Exit the RV Park onto Hwy-330 south for a few miles to the T-CH (Hwy-1) east for ~120 miles to Hwy-201 north for a couple of miles to the Bellevue Beach Campground.  Except for a short stretch of Hwy-201, the roads were all in excellent condition, and we rolled along comfortably.

On the T-CH, the posted maximum speed limit was usually 100 km/hr (61 mph) except when passing through Terra Nova National Park, where the maximum speed limit was either 80 km/hr (50 mph) or 90 km/hr (56 mph).  We encountered a few construction zones with 50 km/hr (31 mph) speed limits, but they were short and we never had to wait to get through.  There were a LOT of hills, some with long and/or steeper grades, but also frequent passing lanes.  The cruise control on the F-150 was able to maintain the set speeds going uphill, so the grades were not too steep.  It did pretty well holding the speed going downhill as well, but I did have to apply the brakes from time to time.

We arrived at the Bellevue Beach Campground entrance at 1:08 PM and Linda got us registered.  We could not tell if this was a private park or a municipal park, but either way it had that small, “we don’t put a lot money into maintaining this place” kind of look and feel.  No campground map with a route to our site, for instance.  But the price was right, the location was what we needed, and the setting was very nice, as shown in the photos that follow at the end of this post.

We had some momentary confusion trying to find our site (#89) as Linda confirmed it was a pull-through, but it wasn’t.  We did really well, however, getting the trailer backed in and level, and were done setting up by 2:20 PM.  Our What 3 Words location was (W3W=trashing.fluctuates.lighters).  We are at 47.635… (N) latitude, -53.778… (W) longitude.  We’ve been farther north, but this was the farthest east we had traveled in North America up to this point in our trip.

While we were setting up camp, a large 5^th-wheel trailer pulled in and parked a few sites away from us.  We recognized the owners as a couple we had met and talked to at the Gros Morne – Norris Point KOA.  The couple in the trailer next to them recognized us and waved, so I think they were also at the same KOA at the same time.  We did not get a chance to talk to them today, but will likely cross paths tomorrow.

We had a quick lunch of garlic hummus with potato chips (Linda) and veggie straws (me).  We then went for a long walk around a part of the RV portion of the campground, and then down the isthmus Vinland Trail and back up the beach.  When we got back to the rig, Linda started making vegan German potato salad for dinner to go along with vegan Italian sausages on buns.  The cool breeze from the south that greeted us when we arrived earlier had intensified to the point where we had to close the door and most of the windows in the trailer.  The rest of the evening Linda read and I processed photos and put the blog post together.

Before turning in for the night I checked outside to see what the sky conditions were like.  Some stars were visible, but there were some thin clouds and light pollution, so not a “dark sky” area.  But I did get to see the moon rise, which is always a treat.

Our truck and trailer neatly tucked into our corner back-in site (89) at Bellevue Beach Campground, in Bellevue Beach, Newfoundland.  We had trouble finding it because the lady at the registration office assured Linda it was a “pull-thru” site.  Apparently, she meant “you pull through the campground until you find the site, and then you back in.”  Water and electric (30A) as promised on the phone.  The site looks nice from this point of view, and we had a nice view of a freshwater pond looking back from the trailer in this direction.  Not shown is the trailer that is just off the rear of our trailer, or the one that is in woods just on the other side of our trailer.  The pond is separated from Trickle Bay by an isthmus.  The campground occupies part of the isthmus, and a trail goes to a small village at the other end.

A view of our truck and trailer in site 89 from the other side.  The location of the “services” (water and electric) was a bit unusual, but our shorepower cord and fresh water components were able to reach.  The site was not flat, but we were able to position the trailer so it was only 1/2” low on the driver side and only 1-3/4” high in the front.  That’s about as good as we have encountered on the whole trip, and getting level was fairly easy.  A small portion of the freshwater pond is visible behind the truck.  We are obviously in the RV portion of the campground, but most of the sites are here were for tents in a separate area.

A view of part of Tickle Bay from the bay side of the isthmus.  Tickle Bay is a small bay at the southwest end of the much large Trinity Bay.  The land to the left is part of the Avalon Peninsula.  The low area, center-right, is Bull Arm.  The land to the right of Bull Arm is the Bonavista Peninsula.

In this view, Bull Arm is center-left, and the land to the right is the beginning of the Bonavista Peninsula, which extends a very long way out into the North Atlantic Ocean from here.

From a bit farther down the beach on the isthmus.  Land on the left is the Avalon Peninsula.  Low area in the center is Bull Arm.  Land to the right is the Bonavista Peninsula.

This is the land that forms the other (east) side of Tickle Bay, as seen from the Vinland Trail that runs along the isthmus.  It’s a small peninsula that ends at Tickle Harbor Point.  Collier Bay is on the other side of this peninsula.  Looking at our map, we could not determine the location of Tickle Harbor, or if it even exists, but it’s a large-scale map with limited detail.

A large flock of these bids where feeding along the beach on the bay side of the isthmus, just beyond of the reach of the waves that were breaking onto the shore.  We think they were Sanderling (Sandpipers).

The best shot I had that allowed us to identify these birds as probably being Sanderling Sandpipers.

…

SUNDAY 14 August

(There are no photos for this post.)

It rained gently overnight and we awoke this morning to overcast skies and light drizzle.  But that was OK; we knew the rain was coming and this part of Newfoundland needs the moisture.  Since we have been on the island, the fire danger signs have been “very high” or “extreme.”  I got up just before 7 AM.  Overnight lows made it into the mid-50s (F), but it was still 65 (F) in the trailer (according to our electronic thermometer that never agrees with the temperature sensors for the two heat-pumps).  A bit chilly, but warm enough to be comfortable in my usual morning attire of sweatpants and sweatshirt.  I fed the cat and turned on my computer to continue working on the blog.  Linda got up a little later, and made our morning coffee.  We like our morning routine, which is essentially the same as when we are at home (minus Youtube videos).

Last night, I was able to upload the blog posts for this past Thursday and Friday.  This morning I was able to process the photos from yesterday, finish writing the blog post, and upload it to WordPress, all before breakfast.  The Wi-Fi/Internet connection was very good all day yesterday and continued to be very good this morning.  This is not normally an issue for us in the USA, as we have a Verizon Jetpack with an unlimited data plan, but here in Canada we are limited to 500 MB per day for each phone ( 1 GB total), if Verizon has a roaming agreement with the local carrier, and we have had to depend on some level of usable campground Wi-Fi.

Until yesterday morning, we had two large RVs in the spots immediately to our left/driver side.  They were blocking our line of sight to what I think is the Wi-Fi antenna, perhaps the only one for the entire park.  (I have not seen any evidence of any other outside antennas, and Linda had NO Wi-Fi signal at the laundry building, which is just across the entrance driveway from the office at the end of the motel building.)  I think that signal blockage was, in part, responsible for our weak signal, which would not stay connected and wasn’t very fast when it did.  It’s possible/probable that not as many people were trying to use it, as rigs have left recently, and I have generally had good connectivity early in the morning and late at night, even with the RVs blocking our line of sight to the antenna.  (It’s also possible that the router could be configured to only accept a limited number of simultaneous connections.)  Whatever the technical explanation, it was working well at the moment.  Indeed, two B+ motorhomes pulled into the two vacant sites next to us during the morning.  They pulled far enough forward (for their own purposes) so as to not block our view of the antenna, and the Wi-Fi continued to be solid and fast.  We like it when that happens.

As a note for the future, we need to add a Wi-Fi Ranger to the trailer, especially for any future travels in/through Canada (to Alaska, the western Provinces, or a return to the eastern Provinces) or perhaps Mexico (unlikely).  We have one on the bus, but it’s installed and I have no interest in un-installing it.  Besides, it’s an older unit, and they have newer/better technology now, including dual band 2.4/5.0 GHz units.  These units cannot create a usable signal where none exists, and they cannot change the speed at which the main Internet gateway/router is interacting with the hosting provider, but they CAN make a big difference in situations with marginal signal strength.  The same is true for cellular boosters, which we should also install.  By capturing and amplifying the weaker signal, and sending back a much stronger one, they are able to maintain a solid connection and reduce or eliminate the need to resend packets which were unusable due to errors.

The other option, of course, is Starlink.  Starlink has finally been made available for mobile/RV use, and for use in Canada, but is not without its technical and other issues.  I’m not a big Elon Musk fan, and there are some serious downsides to the low earth orbit satellite clusters.  But these satellites are not in a geosynchronous orbit (high-altitude equatorial-plane) and are visible when traveling farther north, which is key.  It’s not something we would need for domestic travel, and there is a cost attached to it, not to mention carrying around the additional equipment, but it’s a potential solution that cannot be dismissed out-of-hand.

Since we weren’t going anywhere today, we didn’t have breakfast until after 10 AM.  It was a full spread consisting of:  scrambled eggs (Just Egg), sausage links, bacon, toast with butter (all vegan, of course) and strawberry jam, grapefruit, orange juice (organic), and what was left of our morning cups of coffee.  Why?  Well, because Linda is feeling better and felt like cooking, but also because we had the ingredients and needed to use them.  We will be taking the ferry back to Nova Scotia in less than two weeks, and that means we have to start using refrigerated and frozen items with the aim of having very little of either left prior to boarding the ship.  Even with the short (7 hour) passage, we will be without refrigeration for at least 10 hours.

But that’s not for a little while yet, and we still have places to go and things to see before we leave the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador.  For not ever having been here, I think we did pretty well in planning our travel, lodging, and sight-seeing.  But there is so much we haven’t seen or done, or only glimpsed in passing.  If we ever got back here, I could see arriving in May and leaving in September.  It’s that big, that beautiful, and there is that much to do.  And the people are just so darn nice.

In the early afternoon, we both took Rapid Response COVID-19 Antigen self-tests.  Mine was negative, but Linda’s showed a faint line at the “T” mark.  She developed symptoms a day later than I did, which was 12 days ago.  My lingering symptoms continue to be slightly worse than hers, but that was not a surprise as I tend to have perpetual sinus issues (pre-existing condition).

We skipped lunch in favor of light snacks throughout the afternoon.  The intermittent drizzle eventually stopped, but the overcast skies and cool temperatures continued, so we enjoyed some hot tea.  By 5 PM the temperature was only 64 (F) with a light breeze, but we like these weather conditions as we do not have to run the furnace or the heat-pumps (heating or cooling).  True campers adjust to their surroundings with clothing, which they regard as equipment.

Linda ventured outside long enough to take a bag of kitchen garbage to the dumpster and I went out long enough to hook up the drain hose for the waste water tanks.  Those were our big outside chores for the day.  I took a break from working on my computer and took a nap while Linda read.  Once I was up and about, she took a nap.  It’s the way we roll.

I worked a couple of easier picture puzzles (Nonograms) before trying one that wasn’t quite as easy.  After restarting it for the 4^th time, I put it aside.  While logical and deterministic (single-solution) in their construction, some of them have enough empty spaces that I have to guess at squares to fill in early in the solution.  When I guess wrong (which is most of the time), the puzzle typically “falls apart” a few steps later, and does so in a way that I cannot recover.  The only recourse at that point is to reset the puzzle and start over, which I am not always in the humor to do.

Dinner was chicken tenders with macaroni and cheese, the vegan versions of which are quite acceptable.  (We were supposed to have fish fillets with tartar sauce, but picked up the chicken tenders by mistake.  We use both, and like both, so it was fine.)  After dinner I went outside with our clippers and trimmed my beard (it was overdue).

Our next RV park is Bellevue Beach Campground in Bellevue Beach.  Linda called earlier in the day to confirm check-in time.  It’s 1 PM.  It is 140 miles, and should take about 2.5 hours from when we pull out until we check in, so we will target a 10:15 AM departure.  We will only be there for two nights, a stop-over on our way to St. John’s, but the website shows an attractive setting on an isthmus between the ocean and a freshwater pond, not unlike Goodyear’s Cove, but larger and nicer.  We will have a water/electric site, but will leave the Country Inn Motel and RV Park with empty waste tanks, so we won’t need the dump station as we will transport the waste water with us to the RV park in St. John’s, where we will have a full-hookup site.

…

SATURDAY 13 August – Gander, Newfoundland, Canada

I was up at 6 AM today and Linda was up shortly thereafter.  We had both gone to bed early enough last night that we were as rested as we were going to be.  I have to be really tired to spend more than 7 hours in bed.  We are both feeling better, day by day, but are not yet fully recovered.  We still have annoying symptoms and tire more quickly than we would like.

The reason I was up early was to try and use the RV park Wi-Fi to update a long and growing list of apps on my iPad and, secondarily, on my Pixel 6 Pro smartphone.  Linda likes to play word games in the morning (such as Wordle and Words With Friends) that require a (functioning) Internet connection.  I’m happy to say that we were (finally) able to get usable Internet via the Park Wi-Fi and get things done.  My iPad updates alone probably added up to more than 3 GB.  I had 34 app updates, most between 100 and 300 MB.  The Gmail app alone was 398 MB.  Clearly, the 500 MB of data we each get from Verizon every 24 hours doesn’t begin to cover the size of these updates.  The phone updates tend to be smaller, but equally or more numerous.  Windows updates can also be huge, but not always.

I got to choose what we had for breakfast, so breakfast was pancakes and sausage links, both vegan (of course).  After breakfast, Linda was reviewing our confirmation for Pippy Park Campground, in St. John’s, Newfoundland, and noticed that it was for a NO WI-FI site (back-in, trees, full-services, 30A).  Humm.  Their website indicated that they had sites with Wi-Fi, but only in one loop.  We have reservations there for 5 nights starting the 17^th, and that would be a long time to go without access to some usable level of Wi-Fi.  Linda had me call them, and I was able to change the reservation to a pull-through, full-services (50A) site with Wi-Fi for only a few extra dollars per day.  We were surprised, but pleased, that we were able to do this only a few days in advance of our arrival.

The Entrance to the 101st Airborne crash site memorial.  The site was tastefully developed and beautifully maintained.

We had nice weather on tap for today, partly cloudy with high temperatures reaching up into the 70s (F).  But we had things to do around camp (laundry, grocery shopping, rest, catch up on blog stuff), and felt we had made good use of our time the last two days.  There were, however, two local things that we still wanted to do, so we set off mid-morning to do those.  Both of them were memorials to events that involved or touched Gander and the USA.

Walking over the entry bridge into the site, with flags on the right, the names plaque ahead, and the peace statue left of that.  The cross is downhill to the left.

The Silent Witness statue speaks to the peace-keeping roll of this group of soldiers.

In December, 1985, Arrow Air Flight MF1285R, a chartered Douglass DC-8-63CF, was flying a detachment of the U.S. Army 101^st Airborne Division back to their home base at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, after completing their rotation doing peacekeeping duties in the Sinai Peninsula.  The flight was by way of Cairo/Egypt, Cologne/Germany and Gander/Newfoundland.  The flight made it to Gander late in the evening of December 11, where the plane was serviced and refueled.  It took off in the pre-dawn hours on the 12^th, but failed to gain altitude and crashed on the very steep, rugged terrain between the end of the runway and Gander Lake.  Onboard were 248 members of the 101^st Airborne, and 8 crew.  All 256 people perished in the crash.

In the Silent Witness statue, the children hold olive branches and look to the soldier.  The soldier’s gaze is towards the cross down the hill.  His gaze and the cross are lined up looking in the direction of Fort Campbell, Kentucky, where the 101st Airborne Division was based.

An online search turned up the following from Wikipedia:

“Icing conditions and pilot error as a result of weight and reference speed miscalculations leading to collision with trees…”

And this from  Sandford.org …

“Fatal Plane Crash in Gander, Newfoundland, December 12, 1985. Washington D.C: U.S. Government Printing Office. 766-882. This portion of the Subcommittee report provides the CASB’s majority opinion that ice accumulation on the wings caused the crash.”

The icing was not surprising given the location and time and year.  As a licensed private pilot, pilot error is always difficult to hear.

Looking back up the hill from the statue towards the flags.  From Left to right, they are:  Canada, USA, Newfoundland & Labrador, Gander, and 101st Airborne.

The cross down the hill marking the way home to Fort Campbell, Kentucky.  The entire memorial site is built on the actual location of the crash.

A memorial was established at the crash site in 1995 and was accessible from the Trans-Canada Highway via a gravel road at the runway centerline light towers.  The site was beautifully conceived and maintained., with five major features: Entry bridge, flags, names plaque, peace statue, and cross.  Like the site of all tragedies, it was a sobering experience to stand there and think about why it existed.

Linda at the 9/11 Compassion Memorial in front of the Gander, Newfoundland Town Hall.  The banner describes the musical “Come From Away” based on Gander’s role in the tragedy.

The other intersection of Gander and the USA was, of course, 9/11.  As an immediate consequence of the terrorist attacks on the USA, all air traffic in North America was quickly grounded.  Prior to the development of true trans-Atlantic aircraft, Gander had been the major waypoint between the US and most of eastern Canada, for flights to/from the other side of the ocean.  Because of its location, and the fact that the airport was, and still is, operational, 38 flights were diverted there.  Those flights had over 6,500 people onboard from 93 different countries.  The people of Gander, indeed of this entire region (including Appleton and Lewisporte) came to the aid of these stranded travelers and saw to it that they were housed, fed, and entertained, and had access to medicines and telephones.  These events became the basis for the musical “Come From Away.”  Development began in 2013 and it was finally produced for the stage in 2015.  It has been in production ever since (possibly with some off time for COVID).

The Compassion Memorial, small and simple, commemorates goodness in the midst of evil.

Linda’s online research indicated that there was a 9/11 memorial in Gander, apparently  at an air museum at the airport.  We drove to the airport, but the memorial wasn’t there.  Neither was the museum, for that matter.  We stopped and asked a couple of women who were walking where we might find it/them.  Well, the air museum was in Appleton, at least 20 km back down the T-CH to the west.  But one of them thought there was something at the Gander Town Hall.

The 9/11 Compassion Memorial Plaque.

We put “Gander Town Hall” in the GPS, and it took us directly there.  And there was, indeed, a small memorial there.  A simple acknowledgement of the events, and Gander’s humanitarian role.  It included a small piece of one of the “twin towers,” a gift to Gander from the NYFD.

On the way back to camp, we stopped at the Ultramar fuel station and topped up the F-150.  We then stopped at Walmart and picked up a few grocery items.  Back at camp, we gathered up the laundry, including the bedding and towels, and drove to the RV park bathroom/laundry building, at the other end of the park.  Two washing machines and two dryers, 2$ each per load (2 loonies).  Not bad.

Linda started one load of laundry and we then used the showers, in turn, and added the towels to the second load of laundry.  She stayed with the laundry while I returned to the rig to work on blog posts.  Linda had reading material, but as able to make phone calls to her sister, Marilyn, and friend, Diane.  Happy birthday, Marilyn!

It was sunny, and not too windy, and the trailer was starting to heat up.  I deployed the awnings on the trailer to keep the heat gain down and managed to keep the trailer comfortable without running the heat-pumps (in cooling mode).

The rest of the day we worked, read, did puzzles or played games, napped, had dinner, etc.  RVing is not all mountain roads, grand vistas, and spectacular shorelines, although there is plenty of that.  For dinner, we had a green salad with raisins and peanuts, the leftover bow-tie pasta, and grapes, and finished off the Bodacious Smooth White wine.  So, we had grapes in three forms for dinner!  We finished off our last package of cookies for dessert.

We have one more day in Gander, but the forecast is for rain.  We planned to stick around camp and take it easy before moving the trailer again on Monday.  Given the forecast, I put the awnings back in, put the 3P stinger in the truck receiver, and put the lawn chairs back in the truck bed.  With no plans to move the truck before Monday morning, I positioned the truck in front of the hitch, ready to hook up.  The only things I still need to do before we leave is connected the dump hose for the waste tanks, and add some water to the fresh water tank.  I might even drain it completely and refill it to the 50% level, but all of that will wait for tomorrow, or even Monday morning.

…

FRIDAY 12 August

Again, I am writing this late the following day and have lost some of the details and chronology of events.  I do recall that the day started with one cup of coffee for each of us, half regular half decaf, and breakfast was avocado toast, which is one of our favorites.  Our objective for today was to visit the village of Twillingate, and get all the way out to the lighthouse at Crow Head.

Our route was NL-330, Gander Bay Road, also known as “The Road to the Shore” and the “Kittiwake Coast.”  The address of our RV park is (technically) on Gander Bay Road, so that was about as easy as it gets.  While the drive was not that many miles, it was a mix of 80 km/hr through unpopulated areas and 50 km/hr as we approached and drove through areas with businesses and residences. We left around 9:30 AM to allow plenty of time to get there, enjoy the area, and get back by late afternoon.

Route NL-340, “The Road to the Isles,” starts at the T-CH near Lewisporte, and goes to Twillingate, so we eventually left NL-330 for NL-340.  Like all of the drives in this northern coastal region of Newfoundland, the scenery was wonderful.  The land here is rocky and rugged, and the winter climate is harsh, yet flora flourishes here, tenaciously getting a foothold wherever it can.  And all of this terrain is surrounded and punctuated by beautiful, clear water, both fresh and salt, as the bays and inlets of the North Atlantic Ocean run deep into the landscape.  Indeed, as we progressed along the route towards Twillingate it became quite clear that we were crossing from one island to the next, thus “The Road to the Isles.”

A view of Twillingate Harbor from the west shore looking out to the North Atlantic Ocean.

This was Linda’s photo of the buildings and wharf.

This is what we had been expecting from seaside towns in Newfoundland.

When we finally reached Twillingate we discovered a larger town than we expected with an actual fleet of fishing boats.  The town sprawls around Twillingate with most business at the southern end.  There was a hospital here, as well as restaurants, shops, art galleries, and museums; yet another place that would be interesting to explore if we were camped here and had a few days.  We parked at a small public area on the west side of the harbor, took a few photos, and studied the map.  We quickly figured out that the lighthouse was not in Twillingate, but farther on down the road in Cow Head.  And so, we continued our journey, but not before stopping at the local Foodland store for some snacks, and to use the restroom, as we had not seen any other evidence of public restrooms in our drive through town.

A view looking east from the Long Point Lighthouse area.

Now on Batrix Island, we drove through the village of Crow Head and out to the point where the Long Point Lighthouse sits high on sheer bluffs hundreds of feet above the water.  The Lighthouse was interesting, but the setting was spectacular.  A local, who comes here every day, stopped to chat with us and showed us how to spot the whales feeding in these waters.  Now retired, he had at one time been a lighthouse keeper.  Though visually small, we saw at least three whales actively feeding.  Earlier in the year (May and June) icebergs can been seen from this vantage point.  It’s hard to describe in words just how incredible this place was, so here are a few pictures instead.

The view looking N from the observation platform at the Long Point Lighthouse.  The next land in this direction is Greenland.

Even after Batrix Island plunges into the ocean, smaller islands remain.

An extensive trail system runs through this whole area, often close to the edge of these cliffs, and going down hundreds of feet to the ocean.

The Long Point Lighthouse and associated buildings.

Bruce by the Long Point Lighthouse (photo by Linda).

The actual Long Point Lighthouse was no longer active, or at least not operating while we were there, but there was a lot of other monitoring equipment on the premises.  It wasn’t clear if the lighthouse and associated buildings where in public or private ownership, but they were in need of maintenance. The keeper’s house was now a museum, and there was an admission charge for the museum and to go inside the lighthouse.  We took a pass on that.

An interesting part of the lighthouse building complex.  The camera is level and the windows are plumb.

This section of the lighthouse building complex connected the tower and keeper’s house to a smaller building at a lower level that appeared to have been a café or snack bar at one time, but was clearly no longer in service.

We had seen several signs for the Auk-Island Winery.  We were curious and wanted to check it out.

On the way back through Twillingate, we left NL-340 for a couple of kilometers to find the Auk-Island Winery.  The building contained a small restaurant and the wine tasting and retail area.  We did not eat in the little restaurant (we are still wearing our masks in public) and did not do a tasting.  We spent some time studying their products, all non-grape northern climate fruit wines.  We bought a bottle Moose Joose (Blueberry and Partridgeberry).  The partridgeberry is a small, juicy, sour berry.  The plant is native to Newfoundland and grows wild.  It is related to the cranberry and is known internationally as the lingonberry.  Buying a wine without tasting it is always an iffy proposition, at best, so our choice was based on the combination of unique local ingredients.  The bonus was that we again had access to bathrooms.

I do most of the driving, but Linda offered to drive us back.  She thought I might enjoy just being able to look at the scenery and/or sensed that I was tired, but I think the drive in looked like fun and she wanted to do it.  Fair enough.  I did enjoy looking at the scenery, I was tired, and yes, it was fun.  Without having to concentrate on the road, I nodded off a few times on the way back to camp.

We were ready for dinner by the time we got back to the RV.  We had vegan BLTs, potato chips, and grapes.  Not too much work, and very satisfying.  After dinner I transferred the day’s photos from the SONY a99 and both of our Pixel 6 phones, but was too tired to process them or start writing today’s blog entry.

Sunset over our Airstream at the Country Inn Motel & RV Park.  There were no fires in the area, this was strictly sunset color.

While I was working, an uninteresting sunset suddenly exploded with color.  I grabbed my phone and took a few pictures.  We did not have much sight-seeing planned for our last two days in Gander, and I planned to use some of that time to get caught up on the blog.

A close up of the most intense part of the event, because all good blog posts end with a sunset.

…

WEDNESDAY 10 August

Today begins our 9^th week on the road.  We have been in Newfoundland for 12 nights and, in spite of being ill for at least half of them, we have loved every day here.

Goodyear’s Cove (South Brook, NL) at the south end of Hall’s Bay, with “calm winds and flat seas.”  (Photo by Linda.)

It rained overnight, which this area certainly needed.  (Major forest fires have been burning south of here, but pose no threat to our location.)  The rain had ended by sun up, and the bay was very calm, so … photos (of course).  We were both up by 7:30 AM and each had one cup of coffee, half regular half decaf, but skipped breakfast.

A closer look at the west side of Goodyear’s Cove at the south end of Hall’s Bay.

Goodyear’s Cove Campground was quiet, with nice neighbors and a good view of Hall’s Bay.  It was only a 2-night stop, but turned out to be a great place to shelter from the rain, isolate, and just rest.  Admittedly, it’s easier to stay put when the whether is less amenable to being outside.  We wish we’d had more chance to interact with our neighbors, but we kept to ourselves for their sake.

Our next RV park was in Gander, just over 100 miles to the east.  The entire trip would be on the Trans-Canada Highway, so approximately a 2-hour drive.  Linda checked with the park yesterday about check-in time.  They weren’t specific, but suggested “lunch time.”  We had requested a “pull-through 3-services” site, but did not have a confirmation.  In fact, it wasn’t clear that we had been assigned to any specific site yet, so we wanted to get there before noon to increase the chances that we would get such a site.  We settled on an 9:30 AM departure and started “making ready” around 8:30 AM.

Our site at Goodyear’s Cove was water and electric only, with no dump station on the premises.  We did not hook up the shore water and used our fresh water tank instead, so we did not add weight to the trailer, merely redistributed it.  But that meant we would be traveling with some contents in the black and gray waste tanks.  Not a big deal, but added incentive for us to get a site with a sewer connection.

As I said, our route was the T-CH and it was in very good condition, with a 100 km/hr. maximum speed limit most of the way.  Part way into the drive, we started seeing Adventure Caravans stickers in the windows of mostly larger Class A motorhomes.  We also started seeing oncoming Airstream travel trailers, plural.  We exchanged headlight/highbeam flashes with the first one, and then the second one, and then several in a row, and then then just kept coming.  We were not counting, but would estimate as many as three dozen in total over our remaining distance to Gander.  Almost all of them had their “Big Red Numbers,” and we felt bad that we did not have ours on our trailer, as we had been unable to find them at home when I was finally ready to put them on.

Linda searched online and eventually determined that it was an Airstream Club International (ACI) group; The Viking Trail Caravan 2022.  The caravan started on June 23^rd at the Marine Atlantic Ferry Terminal in North Sydney, Nova Scotia (déjà vu).  They are spending 55 nights in Newfoundland across 18 different camping locations before returning to the North Sydney terminal (déjà vu, again).  They will see/experience some of the same things we did, plus many more, including Labrador, a whale-watching boat tour, and lots of local food culture.  The caravan description was clear that this was not a “glamping” trip and that all participants needed to be able/willing/prepared to handle maintenance and repairs on their rigs.

The view looking south from our site at the Country Inn Motel & RV Park.  (Old, faded signs still say “Trailer Park” but newer signs say “RV Park.”)

Our destination in Gander was the Country Inn Motel & RV Park.  Only a couple of miles off of the T-CH, it was easy to find and access, even though the address we had was wrong.  Upon arrival, it was immediately obvious that this is not a “destination” RV park, but that was fine with us.  We selected it as a base of operations to explore the area, and it turned out to also be convenient to any shopping we might need to do.

I took care of the registration this time.  We got site 28 (W3W =thundering.percussion.reinvest), a south-facing pull-through with  water/electric/sewer.  It turned out that there are 12 such sites, one of which appeared to be permanent, all in a row, facing a woodland with a pond.  No complaints.

Lunch was sausage, egg, and cheese bagel sandwiches.  All vegan, of course.  It was a bit more substantial than our recent meals, and a good, tasty choice.

After lunch, we went on a grocery run to the Dominion store.  We’ve seen these before, but it was our first time shopping in one.  It was a decent grocery store, but also had a lot of isle space devoted to non-food items.  The NL liquor store was adjacent to, and had an entrance from, the Dominion.

I worked on photos and the blog for bit, but was relieved of those tasks when Bill called and we had a long chat.  Although this was the first I had heard about it, he “did a Bruce” about a month ago.  That’s apparently what we now call the act of falling in a service pit.  He got badly bruised on one side, but nothing broken and no concussion.  I guess that means he did a “mini Bruce.”

We spent some time looking at the weather forecast for the next two days and thinking about what we wanted to visit and when.  Terra Nova National Park (Parks Canada) was top of our list, but we also had great access to the coastal areas north of Gander.  Indeed, there are multiple peninsulas that project up into the North Atlantic Ocean with out-and-back highways that lead to places like Twillingate, where you can see icebergs and whales at the right times of year.

Somewhere in there I think we both took naps.  I also updated my laptop computer, as yesterday was “patch Tuesday” for Windows (10) and related programs (.NET Framework, Office, Threat Intelligence, Malicious Software Removal Tool, etc.).  Keeping this stuff up-to-date is the first line of defense in keeping the system safe and operating smoothly.

For dinner, we finished the chickpea salad, served on lettuce with toast on the side.  After dinner was more puzzles (me) and reading (L).  I was too tired to maintain the focus needed to select and process photos or write blog text.

Bedtime came early for both of us.

…

MONDAY 08 August – IT’S A MOOSE!!!

The sunset last night was nothing special until it was sudden, but briefly, dramatic.  I grabbed a quick shot, did not include it in the last blog post, so here it is.

I also did not include a photo of our site (#78) at the Gros Morne – Norris Point KOA near Rocky Harbor, NL in the previous blog post.  This was our second time at this KOA in just over a week.  (Photo by Linda.)

I was up early enough to create the blog post for August 7 and 8.  Even at this early hour, the Wi-Fi / Internet was not as responsive as I expected.  Two families, obviously together, had pulled into the two sites to our right yesterday with lots of children and lots of tech toys, so I wondered if folks were also up early and working/playing online.  No matter, I got done what I needed to do.

Today was another repositioning day, so we had our usual departure routine to follow.  Our next destination was the Goodyear’s Cove Campground near South Brook, Newfoundland.  It would be a short drive (distance/time) and was just an intermediate stop on our way to Gander.  Linda was checking stuff online and saw several reviews that indicated this campground had NO services.  She was certain we had booked a 30A water and electric site, but it was all done on the phone with no printed confirmation.  That left us wondering if we should try to make alternate arrangements at the last minute.

We were only going to be there for two nights, and could survive with no services as along as we pulled in with sufficient fresh water on board, but we wanted to know for sure.  She called the phone number she had but got a recorded message with the office hours.  Goodyear’s Cove is a municipal campground, so she called a phone number for the city of South Brook.  A very nice lady gave her the direct number for the campground, but she could not call until 9 AM.  It was not yet 9 AM, which is also when the KOA office opened, so we here on hold until then.

We started discussing options, but check-out time was 11 AM, so we did not have a lot of time to make phone calls and decisions.  As a rule, we do not like changing reservations, but will when we have to.  The three most obvious options were: 1) See if we could find another RV park in the area; 2)see if we could extend our stay in our present location (and site) for one or two nights, and/or; 3) Check-in to our Gander location one or two nights early.  Or some combination of the three.  Ugh.  Waiting is the worst when you need information to make decisions.

Linda was finally able to reach someone at the campground and they confirmed that we had requested a 30A pull-through 3-way site.  What they actually had was a back-in 30A water-electric site and there was no dump station on the premises.  I had already dumped our waste tanks and had a half tank of fresh water, so that would work.  Still, it turned out not to be the relaxed start to our day that we had anticipated.

We pulled out of our site at the Gros Morne – Norris Point KOA at 10:45 AM.  Our destination was only ~200 km (~124 mi) and ~2-1/2 hours drivetime  The route was easy, Hwy-430 (The Viking Trail) back down to its starting point at the Trans-Canada Highway in Deer Lake, and then the T-CH to the campground, right on the north side of the highway.  The drive was largely uneventful, with nice weather and lovely scenery.  The roads were the usual mixed bag, mostly good but occasionally not.  They place markers for bad potholes, which is helpful, but not as helpful as actually patching them.  It’s a big province with a harsh climate and, on balance, they seem to do a very good job with the major roads.

As we were nearing Deer Lake, Linda shouted “It’s a Moose!”  I looked to the right just in time to see a moose head up out of the drainage ditch and disappear into the forest.  We’ve been seeing caution signs for moose since we got to the Gaspe peninsula and were starting to think we would never see one.  Now we had!  And it was very exciting.

We arrived at Goodyear’s Cove Campground around 1:15 PM.  Linda went to the office/window to check us in and then came back to the car.  What now?  Cash only, no credit cards.  Not a problem, we are traveling with a certain amount of Canadian currency but, once again, it would have been nice to know this ahead of time.

The steep entrance road is to the right of the RVs.  We had to back our trailer in front of this row of rigs and then angle it around into the 2nd to last site (at the far end of this row).  The guy to our left was kind enough to move his truck and car, although perhaps it was for his own self-preservation.  (W3W=”clumsy.horn.stocky”)

All of the sites are down a steep driveway from highway level to the water level of Halls, Bay.  Most of the sites here did not, in fact, have any services.  The no-services (boondocking) sites are on a barachois, a narrow stretch of land that separates the salt water Halls, Bay from a fresh water pond.  There are only about eight water-electric sites, all together at the east end of campground and backed up to a steep hill with the office and bathhouse on top, but they did have one reserved for us.  The site, however, gave new meaning to the idea of a “back in” RV site.

Our travel trailer in its site at Goodyear’s Cove CG, South Brook, NL.

All of the sites were angled slightly towards the west, facing the Bay, and our site was 2^nd from the far/east end.  Linda suggested, and I agreed, that the only way I was going to back into the site was to first back the trailer down the road in front of them for at least 100 feet before turning into the site.

This was the view from our site.  Not bad, even in cloudy weather.

I am the first to admit that I am not that good at backing up the trailer.  I’ve gotten better at both pulling and backing into a site and getting it straightened out relative to the truck, but I have had almost no experience backing it straight for a long distance.  I’d like to say it was an “interesting and enjoyable learning experience” but the truth is, I just wasn’t feeling the love at that moment.

The south end of Hall’s Bay, a deep, and deep water, bay on the north coast of Newfoundland (The Whale Coast).  Land to the left is the Green Bay (Baie Verté) Peninsula.

But we got it in, and it was definitely a team effort.  We executed our arrival routine, which went smoothly and then had ramen for lunch.  In fact, I only hooked up the electric.  We had sufficient fresh water onboard and I did not want to fuss with hooking up and unhooking the shore water system.  We were both ready for nap by this time, but went for a short walk first to check out the campground and Hall’s, Bay.  The view from our site is actually quite nice.

No doubt our (my) reaction to the events of the day was colored by the fact that we are still ill, so uncomfortable to a certain extent and definitely very tired.  But once we were set up, we had no where we had to go and nothing we had to do except rest and get better.

After our naps we settled in to use our iPads.  There was no campground Wi-Fi, but we able to hot-spot our phones as needed.  Strangely enough, we are able to receive text messages that include photos, but we were not able to send them from here.  Neither of us had used up or daily 500 MB data allowance, so perhaps it had something to do with the carrier we were roaming on.  When confined to the trailer, it’s nice to have usable Internet access.  Perhaps tomorrow our technology will work better.

We used our iPads, sans Internet, to play games, work puzzles, and read until we were tired enough to go to bed.  The overnight low temperature was forecast to be 50 degrees F, so we closed up the trailer, but did not turn on the furnace or heat-pumps.  We got several text messages from our son and daughter-in-law with photos of the family enjoying themselves at Banff National Park (Parks Canada).  We were very pleased to see/hear that the grand-daughters appear to be having a great time and are very impressed with where they and what they are seeing.

TUESDAY 09 August

The clouds moved in overnight and the rain eventual came this morning.  We both slept in.  It was cool in the rig, and we turned on the furnace once we were both up and enjoying our coffee.  We had some of Linda’s homemade granola for breakfast.  I decided to read all of my blog posts for this trip, starting from the first one.  I enjoyed revisiting all of the places we have been and the things we have seen and done.   I found typos in every one of them, which was discouraging, but it’s not practical at this point to go back and edit them.  We doodled on our iPads until we got a text message from our friend Kate, which resulted in a welcomed exchange that went on for a while.

Late in morning, I got my laptop computer out and set it up while Linda prepared chickpea salad for our dinner.  I off-loaded the few new photos that we had taken and picked a few for this post, which I worked on for part of the afternoon.  For lunch, we snacked on hummus using Fritos.

The four most surprising things about Easter Canada, so far, have been: 1) the persistent, strong winds; 2) how many people smoke; 3) the lack of recycling (at least at campgrounds and RV parks), and; 4) that Fritos have been almost impossible to find (we have not found the Scoops version at all.)  Internet here is spotty, but that was not surprising.  All first-world problems, I know, but still …

Around 1:30 Linda needed to change positions and moved from the dinette, where we spend most of our time in the rig (when no sleeping) and lay down in bed to read.  A nap soon followed.  I was ready for a nap by 2:30 PM.  Juniper had already laid claim to my bed, so I used the couch, which is actually my preferred napping spot anyway.

After our naps Linda read and I worked a color Pic-a-Pix (picture) puzzle.  The larger ones can be quite challenging, especially if they have a lot blank squares.  (These puzzles provide counts for each row and column of the number of each color in the order in which they appear.  Filling in squares is completely a matter of logic, as a square has to work for both its row and column.

Around 6 PM there was a knock on our door.  It was our neighbor (husband) to the east, come over to check that we were OK.  Since they had not seen us outside all day, even with the rain, they were concerned.  We were touched; that has never happened to us before in any campground or RV park.  We explained that we were normally quite sociable, but were both “under the weather” and trying to minimize contact with people, but let it go at that.

We finally had dinner around 7 PM.  Chickpea salad on a slice of toast and apple sauce.  Simple, easy, and tasty.  Paper plates and plastic utensils minimized cleanup.

After dinner there was another knock on the door.  This time it was our  neighbor (wife) to the west, with whom Linda had a conversation when we first pulled in and were setting up.  She had brought over some Newfoundland style squid.  Again, we were touched, but Linda explained that we were vegan and would feel bad accepting it and not eating it.  I’m not sure she really understood the whole vegan thing (neither did Sun back in the Gros Morne KOA) but she accepted that it wasn’t something we were going to eat.  But we are used to used to that.  People who are not vegan (or vegetarian) genuinely do not understand why we would choose to eat that way.  If they are somewhat more aware, they will often ask “religion or health?”  That’s what Don did back in Gros Morne, but he and Sun were world travelers and had come in contact with a lot of different cultures and practices over the years.

We had been told that the best thing about Newfoundland are the people, that they are caring and generous and willing to help strangers.  While almost all of our interactions with people here have been friendly and helpful, this was the first time we had experienced this part of “Newfie” hospitality.

The rain resumed around 7:30 PM.  It looked like it might continue for a while, was supposed to be out of here by morning.  Linda continued to read a book (with actual paper pages) and worked on my picture puzzle.  I finished the puzzle sometime after 8 PM and decided to try to upload this post to WordPress by hot spotting off of my phone, but no luck.  I will try again once we are set up at our RV park in Gander.  We are able to do certain things but not others.  I’m not sure what cellular service we are connected to here, but perhaps it is one with a more limited Internet/data agreement (if any) with Verizon.

Tomorrow will be another repositioning day, so a bit a work on both ends, but should be an otherwise easy day with only ~177 km (~110 mi) to travel with a drive time of about 2 hours.  We won’t be in a hurry to pull out, but would like to be at our next location around noon.  We will be up early enough that all of our departure routine will take place in the morning and an easy pace and pull out around 10 AM.

…

SATURDAY 06 August

(There are no pictures for this post, sorry.)

Today was a repositioning day, taking us from the St. Barbe RV Park in St. Barbe, Newfoundland back to the Gros Morne – Norris Point KOA near Rocky Harbor, Newfoundland.  Our energy level was low, so we took our time getting ready to leave.  I took the F-150 to the Ultramar fuel station next door to the campground and topped up the tank.  All of the RVs that were here overnight, as well as two tent campers, were gone before we pulled out around 10 AM.  Some headed to the ferry terminal for the 8 AM ship to Blanc-Sablon, Quebec and the rest headed on down the road.  One of the tents belonged to a couple traveling on bicycles.  We passed them somewhere on Hwy-430 south.

Unlike the drive to St. Barbe on Wednesday, the weather was clear and we got to see the surrounding landscape and coastline, much of which was previously obscured by rain, mist, and fog.  It was an easy drive of ~ 228 km (~ 141 mi) that took about 3 hours and we were checked in at the Gros Morne – Norris Point KOA shortly after 1 PM.  We were assigned site 78, a pull-thru 3-services (30A electric) site  (What3Words = ”conserved.gracefully.fearfully”).  We were set up by 2 PM and then had Kimchi Ramen for lunch.  At 2:30 PM we made a quick trip into Rocky Harbor, stopping at the PharmaCare (for more medications and tissues), the post office (to mail post cards), and the Irving fuel station (to top up the tank in the truck).  When we got back to camp, we both took long naps.

As I had previously posted, I started to not feel well this past Tuesday evening after our boat tour of Western Brook Pond in Gros Morne National Park.  When we moved on Wednesday from Rocky Harbor to St. Barbe, Linda had also started to feel a bit off as well.  In spite of that, we visited the Viking Settlement National Historic Site in L’Anse-aux-Meadows, one of our two main reasons for coming this far north in the western peninsula of Newfoundland.  By Thursday evening we both suspected that our “really bad colds” were actually something else, and used some of the Rapid Antigen Tests we brought with us.  Bingo, we were positive for COVID-19.  For sure, we were not going to Labrador on Friday, but the St. Barbe RV Park turned out to be a wonderful place to just sit and rest before returning to the Gros Morne KOA today.

Linda looked at the Health Canada website and saw that all five of the currently active variants are present on the island (OMICRON BA.1 – BA.5).  We don’t know for sure exactly where/when we came in contact with the virus, but it was not a complete surprise that we did.  But it did surprise us that we finally succumbed to it.  We had the original 2-dose Moderna vaccine followed by two booster shots, one not long before entering Canada.  We have also used vitamin supplementation to support/boost immune system function.  Indeed, we have been face-to-face with friends in the last 6 months who had it, and did not get sick ourselves.  We didn’t think we were immune, and don’t mind that we finally “caught it” as we will now develop natural immunity, but suffering through the symptoms is the price we are paying.

The Health Canada website indicated that we needed to self-isolate, avoiding contact with others if possible, and wearing masks if not.  We can do that, and were glad to see that there was not a reporting requirement.  Changing our itinerary isn’t practical, however, as we have every night booked, especially our return passage to Nova Scotia on the Marine Atlantic ferry, but timing wise this will work out OK.

For our two nights at the Gros Morne KOA, we will just “stay home.”  Our next two nights will be in South Brook.  We don’t have any “must do” things planned for there and will keep to ourselves.  After that we will be five nights in Gander.  We definitely have things we want/need to do there, including grocery shopping, but we should be much healthier by then and, importantly, not infectious.  We will also have the flexibility of sufficient time to work around the weather if necessary.

When Linda got up from her nap, she made macaroni salad and put it in the refrigerator to chill for tonight’s supper.  I was feeling better by this evening; not great, but better.  Linda is a day behind me, so still under the weather.  After the discomfort fades, what remains is the overwhelming tiredness.  Or perhaps it’s just the we are “retired,” as in “I was tired before and now I’m tired again.”

SUNDAY 07 August

I was in bed by 11 PM last night and was up a 6 AM this morning.  Seven hours is about all I can spend lying down before I have to get and do something else, at least for a while.  Linda turned a little earlier and got up a little later, but soon enough we were both having our morning coffee.  Breakfast was bagels, the last of the ones we got at Panera before we left home.  Linda had saved a cinnamon crunch for me so that was a treat.

Our plan for today was to stay in the trailer and rest while we continue to recover from “the virus.”  Rain was also forecast.  On its own, it would not have prevented us from going out, but we needed an “inside day” anyway, to take care of tasks on our computers.  Linda needed to update our financial records and reconcile our credit card and cash receipts.  She also needed to download and deal with e-mails, which she only does when her computer is on to do the finances.

My computer is on almost every day so I can process photos and work on the blog.  If I have Internet access, I usually download e-mails and scan through them.  If there is something important, I deal with it or mention it to Linda, but I rarely take the time to deal with all of them.  That is to say, make a decision about what to do with each one:  Delete it immediately, read it, reply to it, take some action based on it, or file it.  I usually let this build up to the point that when I get around to it, it’s a time-consuming, tedious task, which is why I put off doing it in the first place.  In other words, a perfect chore for a rainy day where I am not going to go anywhere or do anything else anyway.

And so, we worked until we were done, or at least tired and wanted to take a break and rest.  Lunch was nuts and fruit and chips, easy to eat while we worked.  Mid-afternoon we both laid down and took naps.  In an unusual variation in her behavior, Juniper-the-Cat snuggled in next to me (instead of on top of one of us) and napped as well.  We got up about 90 minutes later, but Juniper wasn’t done and went back to sleep.  She does that a lot; she’s an older cat.  We had hot tea.  Linda checked in on the world (iPad).  I worked on the blog for today, and decided to just append it yesterday’s a make a single, longer post.

For dinner, we had the rest of the macaroni salad Linda made yesterday, followed by more tea and some cookies.  Hot liquid is soothing, and we are conscious of the need to stay hydrated.  And cookies are, well, cookies, and you need something to make you feel good when you are sick.  The evening was a time to use our iPads to read and play games or solve puzzles.  I deferred creating blog posts in WordPress until morning, when our Wi-Fi access to the Internet will be usable enough to get it done.

Tomorrow will be another travel day for us.  Our next stop, Goodyear’s Cove in South Brook, is only a 2-hour drive from here, so we will aim for a late morning departure.  That will allow us to sleep in a bit, and still make for a relaxed morning and departure routine.

…

FRIDAY 05 August

I had a rough night with my cold symptoms and got up around 3 AM.  I doodled on my iPad until 4:30 and then arranged some pillows and cushions on the sofa so I could lie down on my back with my head elevated.  That seemed to help, and I was able to sleep, sort of, until 6:30.  Linda did not sleep well either, and was up by 6:45.  Never underestimate the physical and psychological power of coffee in the morning.

A panoramic view of the municipal RV Park in St. Barbe, Newfoundland, from near the entrance gate.  Our rig appears father away and smaller than it really is.

Although not a “destination” RV park, this place has more than met our needs and I wanted to share a few photos of the park and the Southern Labrador ferry terminal across the street.  This ferry is operated by Labrador Atlantic.  The Friday schedule had the ferry leaving Blanc-Sablon at 8:30 AM (Newfoundland time) and arriving in St. Barbe around 10:15 AM, so I wanted to get some photos of that as well.

Our rig in site #4 at SBRV Park, with 2-way service (water and electric).  It has been a pleasant, quiet place to stay with added interest from the Southern Labrador Ferry operations and traffic.

The facilities building at the RV park is really nice, so we took advantage of that, first for showers and then to do laundry.  And Internet access, of course.  On the way back from her shower, Linda was chatting with our neighbor (two sites down from us), and learned that they had just come over on the ferry yesterday from Blanc-Sablon, Quebec.  They are traveling in an Isata 3 Series class C motorhome, and had just traversed the Trans-Labrador Highway, which was only recently completed.  Now THAT, is an epic road trip.

The Labrador Atlantic ferry terminal shares part of a building with a motel and restaurant, just across the street from the entrance gate to the RV park.  The dock and staging area are ~ 1/4 mile on down the road.

After finishing my second cup of coffee I went over to the building and took a shower.  The laundry room here has three washers and three dryers and we were the only ones using them, so it was a major laundry day, with towels and bedding in addition to clothes.  Linda did the laundry while I walked down to the ferry dock around 10:00 AM to watch the unloading and loading operations and take a few pictures with my Google Pixel 6 Pro smartphone.  (I was not up to using the big camera today, and the quality of the phone photos is excellent.)  Here are my selections:

The QAJAQ W ship at its dock in St. Barbe, Newfoundland.  The area to the right in the photo was the staging area for passenger vehicles, pickup trucks with smaller trailers, and some smaller RVs.  Most larger RVs and tractor-trailers were lined up, nose-to-tail along both sides of the road coming in.

The first vehicle to disembark was a tractor-trailer parked near the center of the ship, side-to-side.

The second vehicle out was also a tractor-trailer.  It was parked in the far-right lane (as you face the ship).  It was impressive to watch the driver steer this combo around to the center and straighten out enough to drive it off the loading ramp.       

I was amazed by what came off of the ship next.  This was a double tanker.  My best guess was 90 – 100 feet long.

A Prevost H3-45 tour bus exits the ship.  Not being articulated, like a tractor-trailer, it had its own maneuverability issues, but the driver handled it flawlessly.  But I know how long it was … 45 ft!  And it was a Prevost H model, so I had to photograph it.

Once all of the large vehicles were off the ship, I could see that the cargo deck was open on both ends and that there was also an integral loading ramp at the other end of the ship.  I then noticed that the deck was painted with five (5) numbered lanes.  Because of their size (width), the large vehicles were only loaded in four columns.  But wait, there’s more!  Part of the deck (to the left in the photo) raised up and smaller vehicles started coming out.  And they kept coming, and coming, and coming.  It was impressive just how many vehicles, of all sizes, configurations, and weights were on this ship coming back from Blanc-Sablon, Quebec.

Once all of the arriving vehicles (and some walk-on passengers) had disembarked, the crew started reloading the lower cargo hold of the ship with smaller vehicles.  Again, I was amazed at how many they got in before closing the deck hatch.

Next, it was the Big Boys turn.  The way the staging area is arranged relative to the loading ramp, the big tractor-trailers did not always have a straight-in approach.  I admired the ability of the drivers to manipulate these big rigs onto the ship.  Even after boarding they might have to pull them to one side or the other into their designated lane and get them straightened out so as not to block an adjacent lane.  I never saw one of them have to back up to accomplish this.

Two Tour buses (MCI J4500) had been parked at the terminal building this morning and then moved to the staging area by the boat.  Lacking articulation, the were perhaps even more challenging to maneuver into place, but the drivers did not seem to have any difficulty putting them exactly where the boarding crew wanted them.

They saved the best, or at least the largest for this crossing, for last.  This tractor was pulling a low-boy trailer with an auxiliary pup at the end.  It was transporting a portable worksite building and some associated cargo, and was wider than a normal semi.  Two axles on the trailer, one on the pup, two drive axles on the tractor with a bogie axle ahead of them, four tires on each axle, and the two steer tires.  That’s 7 axles and 26 tires.  They had left space for him in the one of the two center lanes, pulled him right in, lifted the integral loading ramp, and lowered the bow (or stern) to seal it up.

The QAJAQ W, loaded and seaworthy, pushes away from the dock (bow/stern thrusters) and then pulls out into the basin.  It did not turn, as I expected, and headed out as oriented.  Unlike the Marine Atlantic ship M/V Highlanders, when had a definite bow and stern, it appears that the QAJAQ W can sail in either direction.  Visible in this photo is the passenger deck, which presumably had comfortable seating, bathrooms, and a snack bar.

The QAJAQ W makes its way out of the harbor towards the Gulf of St. Lawrence.  It will take about 1 hr. 45 min. to reach the dock in Blanc-Sablon, Quebec.  Any vehicles headed directly to Labrador will cross the border roughly 30 minutes after they disembark.

With laundry and photos taken care of, we had a late breakfast of vegan egg and cheese sandwiches and split a banana.  We planned to stay in camp and have an easy day otherwise.  I took my laptop computer to the building and published the blog post for yesterday.  As long as I was online, I downloaded e-mail and went through it quickly.  There wasn’t much that needed attention, so I marked most of the entries “read” without actually looking at them, and deleted some obvious spam.  I had hoped to take the time to actually clean up my inboxes, filing or deleting e-mails as appropriate, but that tends to be a tedious, and time-consuming, job and I wasn’t feeling up to it.  Maybe at our next stop, as we will be there two nights and plan to just rest and continue to get over our colds.  We both lay down around 1:30 PM and took naps for a little over 2 hours.

When I got up, I made us both a cup of tea as hot liquid seems to make us feel better.  Besides, we were slightly chilled as it was overcast and drizzly most of the day, and the high temperature never climbed above the mid-60s F.  I off-loaded all of the photos from this morning and then selected and processed the ones for this blog post.

As an aside, right after putting the new litter tray into service, we discovered and addressed an issue with the design that allowed urine to escape even through Juniper-the-cat was using it correctly.  It’s larger, and she seems to like it, so all is well on the kitty bathroom front.

Dinner was ramen once again.  My choice.  Kind of like vegan chicken soup.  And grapes, green and red.  We like grapes.  There were already four other RVs here when we sat down to eat at 6 PM, and another one came in as we were finishing our meal.  That made six, including us, An SUV with a cartop carrier, and another one pulling a pop-up camper, came in around 7:30 PM.  The RV Park can probably accommodate 18 rigs, if they are parked correctly, although some sites do not have any services.  We suspect that most the rigs that have arrived today will be boarding the first ferry in the morning. The ferry was scheduled to depart Blanc-Sablon, Quebec at 6 PM (Newfoundland time) and arrived in St. Barbe at 8 PM, sounding its horn as it came in, so we might pick up a few more RV in the park tonight.  It will certainly be a relatively busier night compared to last night, but we expect it will be just as quiet.

I don’t usually post the blog entry for the day until the next morning.  Because we are traveling tomorrow, and my computer won’t connect to the park Wi-Fri from the trailer, I decided to post this evening before going to bed.  If anything of interest happens before midnight, I will mention it tomorrow’s post.

…

THURSDAY 04 August

Our W3W location at St. Barbe RV Park (NL) is “quirky.profiting.coverings”.  We are at 51.202310 degrees (N) Latitude, -56.777957 degrees (W) Longitude.  I wasn’t sure I had included this in my August 3 post.  If I did, and it was different, that’s only due to where I was standing when I captured our location.  The trailer has not moved since we got here.

High on the hill above the parking lot were these sculptures of Norsemen looking to the west.

I was up at 6 AM to take my cold and flu medication (OTC), then cat, coffee, computer.  I worked on blog posts but was not able to create them in WordPress as my computer was having trouble connecting to the RV Park Wi-Fi signal from within our trailer, even though our iPads seem to work OK.  I can take my computer to the building this evening and work from there.  Everything is ready, so it should go quickly.

The Viking Settlement NHS Visitor Center.

Our objective for today was to visit the Viking Settlement National Historic Site (Parks Canada) in L’Anse aux Meadows, Newfoundland.  The site is at the northern end of the western peninsula, but not quite the farthest point north on the island, which is the tip of one of the two peninsulas just west of L’Anse aux Meadows (towns of Cape Norman or Ship Cove).  Even so, it was 145 km (~ 90 mi) north and east of our RV park.

The longhouse, one of three reconstructed buildings on the site (photo by Linda).

Since we had pretty much scrubbed taking the ferry to Labrador, this was the farthest north we would travel in Newfoundland, and in Canada.  Indeed, it’s the farthest north either us have ever been by land-based travel.  Our map apps indicated ~ 1 hr 45 minutes driving time to get there, so we planned to leave at 8:15.  That meant we had breakfast earlier than usual; toasted bagels and orange juice to get the day started.

The costumed interpreter we encountered when we first entered the reconstructed longhouse.  He explained the relationship between the four tales of Vinland and archeological reality.  (Photo by Linda.)

Although Linda also started coming down with a cold last evening, she still felt better than I did, and suggested that she drive today.  That sounded good to me.  We had a heavy cloud layer but, unlike yesterday, a clear line of sight.  Most of the trip was on Hwy-430 (The Viking Trail, of course), with the last 22 km on Hwy-435.

One of the two costumed interpreters we met in the reconstructed longhouse.  She was knitting.  (Photo by Linda.)

Hwy-430 hugged the west coast for a while before turning east and heading inland.  As we got north of Flowers Cove, we noticed land across the water to our left (northwest).  It was hazy, but it was definitely there, clearly visible well above the level of the ocean.  Checking Google Maps, we eventually determined that it was Labrador, about 10 miles distant.  We lost sight of Labrador when we turned east, but could see it clearly again once we reach the Viking Settlement NHS.  (We cannot see Labrador or Blanc-Sablon, Quebec from St. Barbe, Newfoundland, as the mainland coastline curves towards the west, away from the island.  In thinking about why the ferry takes travels a greater distance and take almost two hours to go between St. Barbe, NL and Blanc-Sablon, QC we reasoned that the two terminals must be deep water ports.)

The two other reconstructed buildings.

The Viking Settlement NHS is an archeological site of historical significance.  The four tales of Vinland describe how the Norsemen, who moved from the (now) European mainland  (Scandinavia) and Hebrides Islands to (what is now) Iceland and then to (what is now) Greenland, continued their journey west and south, eventually finding what they called “Vinland.”  (Interesting point, the correct term for these people, men and women, is Norsemen, and they were traders.  The term Viking only applies when they are engaged in raiding.  Only men were Vikings.)  These tales, written long ago about events that took place almost 1,000 years ago, are part mythology, of course, but the presence of the Norse in Iceland and Greenland is historical fact.  It was long suspected (or at least hoped by some people) that they were the first Europeans to set foot on (what is now) North America.

Bruce eyeing the sod construction at the corner of this reconstruction longhouse to see if there is an interesting photo opportunity.  He took the photo, but it wasn’t that interesting after all.  (Photo by Linda).

Based on the tales, a husband-and-wife team of archeologists searched for a place where the Norsemen might have had an encampment.  Their search eventually led them to the L’Anse aux Meadows area of present-day Newfoundland.  They questioned locals about the possible existence of “mounds” and were taken to “the old Indian camp.”  Based on what they saw, which wasn’t much to the untrained and uninformed eye, they knew they had found something of potential importance.  They conducted an archeological investigation from 1960 to 1967, and many locals helped with the work.  The mounds were where buildings had once stood, but it was the discovery of artifacts, including iron, that finally provided the evidence that the Norsemen had been here, about 1,000 years ago.

A view of an island off the coast.

There’s more to the story, of course.  The Norsemen almost certainly interacted with indigenous people while here, as the tales include mention of such encounters.  Butternuts and butternut wood fragments were also found at the site.  These came from present day New Brunswick, so the Vinland described in the tails extended well beyond present day Newfoundland and Labrador.  The four tales of Vinland, even with the unavoidable changes that occur with oral history, apparently contained more than a grain of truth.

A more complete view of the cove at the Viking Settlement NHS.

Artifacts are displayed in cases in the Visitor Center while the archeological site is an easy walk away.  Archeological sites are not usually very interesting to look at, in and of themselves, but we find them fascinating.  You just have to be able and willing to think about where you are and what existed and happened there a long, long time ago.  1,000 years ago, people had traveled across the forbidding North Atlantic Ocean in small wooden boats with wool sails, made it to this exact spot, and established an encampment that lasted about 10 years.  To help most of us visualize what life was like for these people, Parks Canada has also reconstructed part of the encampment adjacent to the archeological site, complete with costumed interpreters.  They also offered guided tours, a feature we have seen, and enjoyed in other parks.

We came across this dragon on our walk at the NHS.  Bruce isn’t Norse, but he was born in the year of the dragon, so there’s that.  (Photo by Linda.)

But the real historical significance is something else.  Described in a 15-minute film at the Visitor Center, Completing the Circle focuses on the fact that the encounter between Norsemen and Indigenous people at L’Anse aux Meadows completed the human migration out of Africa that began 100,000 years ago.  Moving out of Africa, “modern” humans moved north into what is now Europe and east into what is now Asia.  About 25,000 years ago, people from the Asian branch crossed a land bridge into what is now Alaska, and moved down through what is now The Americas (North, Central, and South).  When the Norsemen met the Indigenous people on Newfoundland, it was the first time the branches of the African migration had met, and human beings had now encircled the planet Earth.

The trail we walked went up onto a cliff at this point.  Linda is up, looking out over the ocean.

In addition to the archeology, the Viking Settlement NHS has 80 km² of low, rocky hills covered in vegetation but almost devoid of trees; a very different landscape from what we have seen in Newfoundland up to this point, with a beauty all its own.  A 2.4 km trail through the west portion of the grounds made for a lovely walk, with good views of the Labrador coast.

If you look closely, you can see Labrador.

As long as we had come this far, we drove to St. Anthony.  One the way we passed “St. Brendan’s Motel” and stopped to take a picture.  We had not done any research on this town, and found it quite unremarkable.  The big things to see/do all involve a Dr. Grenfell; Museum and Property, etc.  That did not interest us, so we did not bother trying to find them.  We stopped at the Foodland store, and bought a loaf of bread, a box of tissues, a small box of granola bars, and Gatorade for me to drink.  We then headed back to St. Barbe, stopping briefly at the PharmaCare in Flowers Cove for bottled water.

PHOTO – St-Bs-Motel  We spell our son’s name this way, so we had to take a picture.  Besides, it’s a colorful paint scheme.  (Photo by Linda.)

We spell our son’s name this way, so we had to take a picture.  Besides, it’s a colorful paint scheme.  (Photo by Linda.)

It had not been a hard day, but we were both feeling the effects of not being completely well.  We had some hot tea and then Linda napped while I worked at my computer.  Linda was going to make mushroom risotto for dinner, but it turned out that we did not have any rice on board.  Mushroom pasta was the backup option, but the two containers of mushrooms had gone bad.  We ended up having ramen and crackers.  Again; simple, easy, and tasty.

After working on this blog post for awhile after dinner, I took my computer to the building and created the actual posts in WordPress.  There were three rooms where I could work, one of which had a TV on.  Another one had a table and chairs, so I worked there.  There was only one other RV in the park, plus the park manager in the office, so the Wi-Fi was solid and fast, and the WordPress process was smooth and relatively quick.  As long as I had a good Internet connection, and checked e-mail.

Back in the trailer, I plugged in our Western Digital Passport portable hard drive (USB) and backed up all of the work from the last few days.

When the day started, we still had a glimmer of hope about taking the ferry to Labrador (via Quebec) tomorrow.  With both of us having developed colds, any chance of that was off the table.  While a bit disappointed, we were glad that we at least got to see it from afar.

Although we don’t feel like we have been pushing ourselves overly hard, tomorrow will be a day of rest and light chores before we move the trailer again on Saturday.  We have two more nights booked at the Gros Morne – Norris Point KOA, and then our journey takes us east across the island, ultimately reaching St. John’s before returning to Channel-Port-aux-Basques to take the Marine Atlantic ferry back to North Sydney, Nova Scotia.

…

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 8^th 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 5^th 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.

…

SUNDAY 31 July

“Wake up” time for me was around 6 AM, and “get up” time was closer to 6:30 AM.  Linda has been getting up fairly regularly around 7 AM, and feels she is sleeping better at night.  Here on the western edge of the Newfoundland time zone, and well past the summer solstice, first light and sunrise are at a later hour than we had experienced along the coasts of the Gaspe Peninsula and New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and the Cape Breton Island portion of Nova Scotia.  The time for those solar events will move earlier by the time we reach St. John’s, but not like we have experienced previously.

I made coffee (of course) and worked on the blog posts for the last several days.  We had the other two muffins for breakfast and then I went over to take a shower around 9 AM.  Just as I was getting ready to turn the water on, the lights and fan went out.  I put my clothes back on and stopped at the office to what was what.  It was also dark, and the staff indicated that the outage was triggered by something that happened in Rocky Harbor, and was affecting the entire area.  I returned to our rig and took my shower there instead.

The power outage was not going to be a problem unless it lasted a long time.  The refrigerator was running on propane, the house batteries were fully charged, and there was enough sunlight for the solar panels to keep them fully charged.  What was a problem was that Juniper-the-cat had started peeing over the edge of her litter tray, on the litter mat just in front of it.  Paul and Nancy had given us their stainless-steel tray after they lost their cat, Nala, while we were all in New Brunswick.  Our old plastic tray had become difficult to clean and we thought the stainless steel one would be better.  It was, for that purpose, but cats are funny and don’t always react well to changes in their environment.

The tray had a lower height than her old one, so Linda tried to modify the entry lip to make it higher, but that didn’t work.  When Juniper didn’t even bother to get in the litter tray, Linda thought perhaps the litter mat had acquired an odor, which signaled Juniper that is the place to do her business.  Tired of cleaning the litter mat, we stopped at the drug store in Rocky Harbor yesterday and bought leak proof absorbent pads to put on the floor in front of the tray.  That seemed to be working, but Linda had already decided that we needed a new litter tray.

An online search last night indicated that one might be available at the Value Pet store in Corner Brook.  Corner Brook is a 1-1/2 hour drive down Hwy-430 and Hwy-1/T-CH, but it’s the only city of any size in western NL.  As long as we were driving that far, we figured we would go to Sobeys and stock up a bit more on groceries, and buy some wine as Don and Sun were supposed to come to our patio tonight.

We left at 10 AM.  This was the first time we had driven this route in the opposite direction from our arrival.  Same mountains and lakes, but different views in different weather.  This is a grand landscape.

As we were getting closer to Corner Brook Linda looked up the RV park where we will spend our last two nights in Newfoundland (Aug 24 and 25).  The required exit was the first of four for Corner Brook, and was the exit we would be taking as we approached from this direction on the T-CH.  We decided to check it out, and see if we could arrange a delayed departure on the same site, or an additional night, if necessary.

The park was a kilometer or so from the highway and would be easy to get to with the trailer.  The staff at the registration booth found our reservation and indicated that no one was schedule to come in on the 25^th.  They offered to add the night of the 25^th to our reservation and work out the details when we arrived.  I indicated that we would probably leave between 4 and 4:30 PM in order to be at the Marine Atlantic terminal in Channel-Port-aux-Basques by 7 PM.  They suggested that there might not be any extra charge in that case.

Rather than return to the T-CH, we continued on to the Value Pet store on city streets.  We told the GPS to take the “shortest” route and ended up driving through a neighborhood of very narrow streets that reminded me of San Francisco.  Seriously, many of the roads ran straight down the hillside at what I took to be a 25% grade.  And there were cross streets, and there were stop signs at the intersections.  Etc.  It was all fine in the F-150, of course, but it reminded us that “shortest” route to a GPS is just that; not fastest, not easiest, just the least number of miles, even if only by a tenth.  Still, it made for an interesting and unexpected tour of a slice of the city most tourists probably never see.

The Value Pet store was in the shopping complex that included the Walmart we drove past on Friday, as well as a large Canadian Tire store and a Dominion store, so we might have been able to do all of our shopping there.  The Value Pet store had a good selection of litter trays and we found one that we thought would work.  It’s a tapered tray with a tapered lid with a swinging door.  By putting the lid on backwards, the lip at the bottom of the entry hole is very high.  We bought a couple of boxes of Dr, Elsey’s litter.  It’s what we use at home but rarely find in supermarkets.  Changing the brand/type of litter can also be a trigger for a cat.

Although the shopping complex was very convenient, we pressed on to the Sobeys.  This time we parked on the upper lot at the main entrance, sans trailer.  We picked up a few fresh items, a few refrigerated items and a few frozen items, along with non-perishables.  We want to make sure we are well-stocked before heading north to St. Barbe on Wednesday as we do expect to find much in the way of food markets.

The only thing we couldn’t buy at Sobeys was wine as it is only available in the Provincial liquor stores.  Fortunately, there was one just around the corner from the Sobeys.  We put the address in the GPS and headed that way.  When we got to the address there was nothing but houses.  This is the second time this has happened in Newfoundland.  The first time was in Rocky Harbor.  Linda checked on her phone, and could clearly see that we were on the correct road, but the GPS had taken us in the wrong direction.  I headed back the other way and we were there in no time.  The NLC was in the same building as a Colemans supermarket, so this might have been another grocery option.  We bought three bottles of wine and were on our way.

Although close to the Sobeys the GPS took us back to a different entrance on Hwy-1 via a different route.  We probably selected “shortest” route again.  You would think we might learn better after a while.  Soon enough, we were back on the Trans-Canada Highway headed north.  The weather was much better than it had been on Friday, and we had a very nice drive back to our KOA.

Back at camp we unloaded all of our purchases and Linda restocked all of the food items while I restocked the beverages.  I assembled the new litter tray while Linda removed the old one and cleaned it.  She suggested that I go to the office and get some wood for a campfire while she set up the new litter tray with litter.  We did have any kindling, or fire starter, or a lighter (or even matches), so I had to get those along with the wood.

In the camp office/store I asked when the power had been restored.  “About an hour ago.”  We had been in camp for at least 30 minutes, perhaps longer, so the power had been restored just before we got back to the RV park.

We had a telephone call scheduled with our son and his family at 5 PM EDT, 6:30 PM NDT.  They are leaving in the morning for a three-week vacation trip to Banff, Alberta in Paul and Nancy’s Winnebago BOLDT.  Madeline wanted to know where we were and what it was like.  Someplace special, and it was wonderful.  We assured her that she was about to also visit a lot of special places, and that it would be a wonderful experience.  We wished them safe and happy travels.

I arranged some of the wood in the firepit but didn’t light it.  We expected Don and Sun sometime between 7 and 8 PM, after they had eaten dinner.  Linda was outside reading and I was inside working at my computer when I heard voices.  It was Don and Sun.  They had parked their F-350 next to our truck and were sitting on our patio bench chatting with Linda.  They had just gotten back to camp from a shopping trip to Corner Brook.  They hadn’t eaten dinner yet, and were leaving tomorrow morning to head up The Viking Trail, so they waved off on the campfire and wine.

Linda by the campfire at our lovely patio site (61) in the Gros Morne – Norris Point KOA. The first wood campfire we have made on this trip. (Paul took care of the campfires while we were traveling togther.)

We only have an RV on one side of us and finally met one of the owners (the wife) and had a wonderful chat.  They were from Ontario, northeast of Toronto, and it was also their first time in Newfoundland.  They were leaving the KOA tomorrow and moving to their next location.  Once we concluded our chat, I lit our campfire and poured a couple glasses of wine (Bodacious Smooth White).  While sitting around the fire, several campers stopped to chat.  One was from the rig parked behind us (on the other side of some trees).  It turned out it was his rig that we followed onto the ferry late Thursday night.  Another couple were from Paradise here on the island.  We described our travel plans and they gave us lots of tips about things to see and do.  Local knowledge is hard to beat.  As the fire faded it got cool and we retired to the rig for the night.

I was still trying to get caught up on blog posts, but wanted to at least upload the ones having to do with taking the ferry from Nova Scotia to Newfoundland.  They still needed some writing and editing, as well as photo selection and processing, so I worked on that.  By 10 PM, I finally had a couple of them ready to go and started trying to create them in WordPress, but the Wi-Fi was slow and kept disconnecting.  Arrgh.  I even tried connecting to my phone’s hotspot, but that was also unusable.  The Wi-Fi has been pretty good at this KOA early in the morning (before 8 AM) and late in the evening (after 11 PM), but not this evening.  As midnight approached, it was obvious that I was not going to get it done.  I had to call it quits and get to bed, as we had an 8 AM departure planned to visit the Gros Morne National Park Visitor Center in Woody Point and then drive to the trailhead for the 10 AM guided trail hike of the Tablelands Trail.  Google Maps said it would take about 90 minutes to get there.

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FRIDAY 29 July

On Hwy 1 (Trans-Canada Highway) shortly after disembarking from the MV Highlanders ferry in Channel-Port-aux-Basques, NL. (Photo by Linda.)

Unlike the boarding process, disembarkation was quick to the point of feeling a bit rushed.  We were no sooner off the ship and through the terminal gate when we were on Hwy 1, the Trans-Canada Highway, and working our way north out of Channel-Port-aux-Basques.  In the rush, we forgot that we needed to pull over somewhere, turn the propane on, and start the refrigerator.  We eventually saw an Irving fuel station with a large, easy in/out lot and pulled in there to take care of this.

We’re here! The “Welcome to Newfoundland-Labrador” sign makes it official.  (Photo by Linda.)

We had almost no fresh food with us at this point and needed to restock the refrigerator before we got to the KOA.  Linda’s research had turned up a Sobeys supermarket in Corner Brook.  Corner Brook was the largest city in western Newfoundland and was on Hwy-1 enroute to our first campground, so that seemed ideal.  The distance was ~ 220 km with estimated travel time of 2 hrs. 20 mins.  From there to the KOA near Rocky Harbor was ~ 125 km with an estimated travel time of 1 hr. 25 mins.  If we took an hour for the grocery shopping, we should arrive at the KOA just a few minutes early.

We passed a Walmart coming into town, but headed on to the Sobeys as we have had good experiences with them so far.  It turned out that the store was on the 2^nd floor of a 2-story indoor mall in the heart of downtown.  The parking lot was small and not well-suited to a long/tall vehicle, but I found a place to park where I wasn’t blocking traffic and it looked like we could also get out without too much trouble.  We put Juniper back in the trailer so she could eat, drink, or use her littler tray.  Linda then went in to buy groceries and I stayed with the rig and the cat.  Lucky for us, I was parked alongside a Tim Horton’s.  I bought two cups of coffee, a bagel and a classic honey-dip donut as we had not eaten breakfast or had our morning coffee yet.  When Linda returned with the groceries, she loaded the refrigerator.  We put Juniper back in the truck and we were on our way.  She called the KOA to ask about early arrival.  Our site was available, so the timing was no longer an issue.

We had been “warned” about the condition of the roads in Newfoundland, but the man we talked to while waiting to board the ship said they were better than what we had already experienced in the Gaspe peninsula.  Most of Hwy 1 was in good condition up to Deer Lake where it turns east, but we exited onto NB-430, The Viking Trail.  This would be our main route up the western peninsula.  It had apparently been recently rebuilt and was in “like-new” condition.

Our 3-services patio site (#61) at the Gros Morne – Norris Point KOA near Rocky Harbor, NL.  (Photo by Linda.)

We pulled into the Gros Morne – Norris Point KOA around 1 PM and Linda went in to complete our registration and then set up camp.  Our site (#61) was a “3-way” (water, electric, and sewer) 30 Amp with “patio”.  That meant we had a pour concrete area on the curb side of the trailer with a table and four comfortable chairs.  It was, however, our first back-in site of the trip.

Even with pull-thru sites I had not yet managed to pull in and get straightened out on the first try.  And when I finally had the truck and trailer fairly well aligned, we still had to move the trailer slightly in order to level side-to-side.  Our back-in site had a wide road in front of it with empty parking spaces across from it.  That made it quite a bit easier to swing the truck around to initially position the trailer, and then back it into the site, more or less.  At that point it was just the usual back-and-forth to accomplish several things simultaneously:  1) Truck/trailer aligned so the Propride 3P hitch was close to centered (if this is not the case we cannot lower the tongue jack), 2) trailer tires on the two parallel gravel “pads,” 3) low side tires pulled up onto the Anderson Levelers for side-to-side leveling, 4) curb site of the trailer close to, and parallel with, the edge of the concrete patio, 5) trailer back in the site as far as possible while still having the entry steps open onto the patio, and 6) not backing into anything in the process.  As always, Linda served as spotter at the rear of the site, and I Got Out And Looked (G.O.A.L.) often.

With the trailer position and leveled side-to-side, we chocked the tires, disconnected the truck from the trailer, and leveled it front-to-rear.  I hooked up the electrical power while Linda moved Juniper from the truck to the trailer, and started setting up the inside.  The hook-ups (utility connections) where all together at the left/rear corner of the site and the left/rear corner of the trailer ended up close to them.  I set up the fresh water system, which is the most involved, and  then went inside to have a snack and something to drink.  When everything was situated, we went for a walk to check out the campground.

A grove of trees in the KOA with interesting late afternoon light.

The full-hookup sites here are spacious enough and somewhat open, while the water/electric sites are carved into the forest and offer visual privacy on three sides.  This is a KOA Holiday, so it has most of the family-oriented amenities.  It does not have a swimming pool, but it does have shoreline on a lake.  In fact, the entire lake might be part of the campground.  The Wi-Fi here is, once again, reasonably good, which is to say, the signal is strong and steady.  As expected, the data rate was low when everyone was up and using it, but I suspected it would be quite usable early in the morning and late at night.

I like to top up the fuel tank in the F-150 after we have towed the trailer to a new location so I drove to the Parkway Irving fuel station, propane, and convenience store in Rocky Harbor, only a few kilometers away.  As we have seen in other parts of Atlantic Canada, this was a “pump first, pay inside” facility.

Back in camp we just to took it easy until dinner time.  I processed photos from yesterday and today, but was too tired to work on the blog post.  We had two Beyond Meat burgers in the freezer that Linda had moved to the Styrofoam cooler for the crossing.  They got “smooshed” a bit, so she decided to crumble them up and make vegan sloppy Joes.  She added corn to the mix and served them open-faced with potato chips and sliced pears for a very satisfactory, easy meal.

I finally started working on the actual blog post(s) after dinner.  I checked e-mail at some point, and saw one from Akismet.  Akismet is the WordPress plug-in I use to filter out spam comments from the blog, so it is critical to the blog operating effectively.  I have a paid version that costs 1$/month, paid annually.  The payment date was today, and the charge did not go through.  It said they would retry the charge in a day or so.  Oops.  We had replaced our VISA cards earlier in the year, and this was one of the lingering subscriptions I had not updated.  We do not use park W-i-Fi for anything financial, so I turned on the hotspot on my phone, went to the Akismet website, and updated the information.

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