Back to the States

When we left Lewisporte on Wednesday morning, we weren’t sure how far we would travel.  Do we travel just back to Deer Lake about 3 or so hours away where we have full hookups and can get caught up on laundry, etc?  Or do we travel all the way back to Grand Codroy RV Park, the first campground we stayed at, and so some more exploring around the southwest corner of Newfoundland before heading back on the ferry?

So we just started driving.

The moose can be a real problem for drivers.  We passed one sign indicating there had been 660 moose hit on the highways in Newfoundland last year.  Along with the typical moose warning signs, moose sensors have been installed along some of the highway:

When moose are in the area of these sensors, a signal is transmitted to a sign like this one and the lights will start flashing warning that moose are in the area:

While we were on the east side of Newfoundland, we drove by a sign that was flashing.  We watched for moose but didn’t see any.

As we drove we saw some more of Newfoundland’s beautiful mountains…

…and Newfoundland "ponds."

As we were riding, we kept trying to decide about how far to go.  The weather forecast for Doyles and Port aux Basques (the southwest corner of Newfoundland) showed it was raining now and predicting rain for the next several days so we decided to book our tickets for the ferry back to Nova Scotia.  We had wanted to spend the night at Grand Codroy RV Park and take the 10:00 am ferry on Thursday, but it was booked up.   Because we didn’t want to wait and go back on the 3:15 pm ferry on Thursday, we booked the 11:30 pm ferry leaving this evening.

We took another look at Gros Morne Mountains as we approached Deer Lake.

We stopped and filled up with diesel and ate some lunch at the Irving truck stop in Deer Lake and then headed on south towards Port Aux Basques.  This was our last picture we took in Newfoundland.  :(

It started raining after we left Deer Lake and continued until we reached the ferry terminal in Port Aux Basques around 4 pm.  We had to go through a checkpoint before we entered the parking/waiting area for the ferry.  At the checkpoint, they asked us if we had any potatos or “root-bearing” vegetables on board because there is a disease in the soil in Newfoundland that they do not want spreading to the other provinces.  I told them we had some potatos we had bought in Nova Scotia.  That didn’t matter.  No potatos, no matter where you bought them, could be transported back on the ferry back to Nova Scotia.  Oh well, it was only 3 potatos.

We pulled into Lane 10 in the parking/waiting area for the ferry and settled in for a long wait.  While we were traveling in Newfoundland we saw several RV’s boondocking in different places.  We finished up our Newfoundland trip by boondocking in the ferry parking lot.

We turned on the generator and I warmed up some vegetable soup I had fixed a couple of days before.  After dinner, Chuck tried to take a nap because we figured he  might not get much sleep on the ferry.  He maybe slept about 30 minutes.

Around 9:30 or 10, they started loading the cars on to the ferry.  We watched as I think every single car and motorcycle got loaded on before we (and the other campers) could drive on.  When we did get to drive on, we got the very front spot at the other end of the ferry on the lower deck (it had 2 decks for vehicles).  Nobody was going to get off before us!

We locked the motorhome and the car up and headed up for Level 8 because on the way over the seating area on this level was quieter and less crowded.  When I booked the tickets, I was told that all the cabins and reserved seating area had been booked but I really didn’t think that would matter because the seating was comfortable enough on the ferry ride over and I thought we might get a little sleep.

WRONG!!!  I have never heard so many people snoring in all my life.  Sometimes snoring in unison, some duet snorers, and one particularly loud solo snorer.  He could have had the lead role in a “Snore Opera!”  Everyone who was awake (which was all of us who were not snoring) could hear him. 

Needless to say, Chuck didn’t get any sleep and I only got about a 30 minute nap.  Chuck watch movies on a DVD player and I finished reading “Hunger Games” so the time passed fairly quickly. 

We gained a half an hour upon arriving in Nova Scotia and started docking around 6 am.  When they announced for the passengers on our parking level to return to their cars, we headed down as quickly as we could because no one else could get off the ferry until we got off.

As soon as we got to the motorhome and car (we kept them hooked together), I jumped into the car to start the motor and run it through the gears.  I was promptly reprimanded by an attendant saying I could not start the car until the door was opened.  I said ok, but told him we couldn’t go anywhere until I ran the car through the gears.

As soon as they opened the door, I started the car and ran it through the gears and let it idle for the longest 3 minutes of my life.  At about 2 minutes, another ferry attendant came up to me to remind me that no one else could get off the ferry until we moved.  I said I know and I was almost finished running it through the gears.  Chuck had purposely stood outside the motorhome talking with another attendant because he knew we might have this problem with them pushing us to get off before we were ready. 

Chuck asked the attendant how many vehicles this ferry would hold and the attendant told him about 550 if it was all cars.  Chuck also asked him if they purposedly loaded them a certain way to keep the weight distributed evenly.  The attendant told him it doesn't matter how they are loaded because they have water tanks of some type where they can push the water from one side to the other as needed to distribute the weight.

As soon as I was finished, I quickly ran up to the motorhome, Chuck started the motor, and we were off. 

You would think that having been awake all night we would be sleepy, but we weren’t.  So off we drove and drove and drove.

On this our second day of driving, we still had not made up our minds how far we wanted to go.  Our self-imposed deadline for being back home in Nashville is August 23rd for Crystal's baby shower. 

We thought about stopping around Moncton, New Brunswick, again and going to the Bay of Fundy so we could see the world’s largest tidal swing.  But that would have meant staying at least 2 nights to see the high and low tide that occurs over a 6 hour period. 

Plus, we wanted to stop and see Taf, Cory and Isabella in Virginia on the way back and we wanted to visit our new friends at Moody Beach Campground in Wells, Maine, for a few days.

So instead, we decided to just keep driving and hopefully get back into the States.  We had filled up in Baddeck, Nova Scotia, about 40 miles south from where we got off the ferry which meant qw could travel for a very long time without filling up.  When I programmed the GPS, I determined we could make it back to a campground in Houlton, Maine, which is just across the border, by later in the day.

Chuck got a little sleepy that morning while we were in Nova Scotia so we put in some “Waylon and Willie and the Boys” and he sang along with them and Merle to keep himself awake.  He did real good staying awake until we got about an hour or so from Maine.  I kept him awake by getting him a cold, wet washrag for him to wash his face, poking him in the arm, and trying to think of things to talk about. 

Finally, we made it to the border about 4:00 pm.  We had no trouble at all crossing the border back into the states and also gained an hour (Atlantic to Eastern time) making it now 3:00 pm.  The only trouble we did have was we started hearing this unusual noise when Chuck would tap the brakes on the motorhome.

We filled up with diesel again and headed to My Brother’s Place, an RV park about a mile down the road.  After we pulled into our site, Chuck had me tap on the brakes again while the motorhome was parked, and we could still hear the noise.  Great!

The campground was a little tight to get into but nice long sites with full hookups.  After we were set up, we drove the car back down to Wal-mart and guess what was on the side of the road?  A truck repair place with a Cummins sign (the motorhome engine is  Cummins).  We stopped in there and talked to the manager about the noise we were hearing and he told us to come by in the morning and he would take a look at it.

We got a couple of things at Wal-mart, headed back to the camper, ate a couple of hot dogs, went to bed about 6:30 and didn’t get up until about 6:30 or 7:00 the next morning.  We had some sleeping to catch up on.