Good times with good friends

When we got up Friday morning, we were fearful that we might be delayed getting to Moody Beach because we didn’t know what it would take to get the noise fixed that we were hearing on the motorhome. 

We stopped at the truck repair place that morning so the manager could check it out and guess what?  No noise.  Weirdest thing.  We both heard the noise the day before but we couldn’t hear a thing this morning.  We thanked the manager for taking a look at it for us, hooked up the car, and we were on our way.

We arrived at Moody Beach early afternoon to a campground that was much more crowded than when we had left in June.  July and August are their peak months. 

Our friend, John, saw us when we pulled in and led us to a couple of possible sites.  We decided on site #196 and started getting all set up including satellite TV, something we had not had in almost a month.

Friday night, we all went out to eat a local Irish pub where Chuck and I split nachos and onion rings.  (We didn’t feel very Irish that night.)  I introduced them to onion rings and honey.  They thought it was as weird as we did the first time I had them in St. Barbe.  Friday night was karaoke night so we stayed and watched for a while and then went back and sat around Lisa and Bernie’s fire for a while and talked with them and a couple of other people who stopped by to enjoy their campfire.

Lisa and Bernie stay at Moody Beach for the season and have built this awesome fire pit with gravel and chairs and benches around it.  Very inviting!

We woke up to a beautiful sunrise Saturday morning. 

I spent most of the weekend getting caught up on laundry and the blog.  I had tried to stay caught up on writing the entries for the blog while we were in Newfoundland and deciding which pictures to upload; but because the internet was either too slow or too expensive, I didn’t post anything to the blog.  Now with good internet access, I was finally able to start posting on the blog.

John and Lorraine invited us over for grilling steaks and ribs and then we went back to Lisa and Bernie’s and sat around their fire again Saturday night.  On Sunday night, Joe grilled sausages and everyone brought side dishes.  I made the apple dumplings again which got eaten up very quickly. 

On Monday, I had to get caught up on some work so Chuck rode with John, Lorraine and Janice to Lisbon Falls to get a Moxie shirt.  Moxie is the official soft drink of Maine and it tastes like a licorice flavored soft drink.  We found out later that years ago it was sold as an elixir.  Chuck bought a Moxie when we were in Maine back in June and it took him about a week to finish drinking it.  By the time he finished it, he said it wasn't too bad.  John and Joe said most people either like it or hate it.  It is a really different tasting cola.

While on their day trip they also went to L L Bean’s in Freeport where L L Bean first started.  While there, they did some looking around and a little shopping.  On the way there, Chuck had an unpleasant encounter with a moose.  :)

And then they went and picked up some lobster so we could have a “lobsterfest” on our last night at Moody Beach.  John said we had to have lobster before we left and we were SO GLAD!!!

Chuck and I have had lobster at  different restaurants while traveling in the northeast this summer and NONE of them are as good as the lobster that Joe steams.  They are so good you don’t even have to dip them in melted butter.  What a great last dinner in Maine!  Chuck ate 4 lobsters and I had 3!

After dinner, we all went back over to Lisa and Bernie’s and sat around their fire one last night.  I fixed some good ol’ Tennessee homemade chocolate ice cream that I think everyone enjoyed for dessert.

We are so glad we were able to stop and spend a few more days with our new friends at Moody Beach:  John & Lorraine, Joe & Janice, Lisa & Bernie, and many others we met while on our two visits there this summer.  They welcomed us “Southerners” in and made us a part of their Moody Beach family from the very beginning…even though we talk funny.  :)

Thanks ya’ll!

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.

Twilliingate

We headed out for our day trip to Twillingate around 9 am, Tuesday morning, because we figured we would be gone most of the day.  Unlike some of our other day trip drives in Newfoundland, this ride was not as scenic until we reached our destination:  Twillingate.

Twillingate is still a fishing community like most of the coastal towns in Newfoundland;

but it has also become more of a tourist destination with whale and iceburg tours on boats like the one in the picture below.

There were no icebergs in Twillingate when we were there so we were very glad we had taken the Whales and Iceberg tour while we were in St. Anthony.

We drove out to the point at Twillingate where there were a lot of scenic overlooks…

and hiking trails.

Chuck spotted some boats fishing off the point below.

Can you spot them below?

Here they are.

The waves would come crashing in around the rocks on the point.

Scene from Titanic?  (Not quite.)

Scene from Chuck and Melissa’s Newfoundland tour.  (Much better.)

We walked out towards another overlook to the west …

that looked out toward Crows Head.

This clip gives you a better perspective of the western side of Twillingate.

There were a lot of birds on the island behind us in the picture.

From this overlook, we also saw this RV boondocking. 

What a view they had.

We walked back past the first overlook at the point and then behind the lighthouse to the east when Chuck gets a phone call from his uncle, Donald.

I told Chuck to not forget where he was while talking to his uncle and walk off the edge of the cliff.  

Driving while talking on your cell phone is illegal in Newfoundland.  Maybe they should make walking on tall cliffs while talking on your cell phone illegal too.

This is the cliff in front of (and under) the lighthouse.

The cliff goes straight down right past the grass you see in the picture.  I wish I could show this in 3D to give you a better idea.

The lighthouse at Twillingate behind us.

The video clip below gives you an idea of the power of the waves and the beauty surrounding Twillingate.

We left the point at Twillingate and headed back into town looking for a place to eat lunch.  How about some cod, salmon, tongues or cheeks?

A couple of the restaurants we drove by were very crowded for lunch so we ended up driving back to a restaurant at the Anchor Hotel that was not as crowded.  We split a tasty spinach and crab dip and fish (cod) and chips. 

After lunch we drove a few miles to Durrell, another coastal town to the east of Twillingate.

We found a little wayside park where we explored the coastline…

…felt the icy cold water…

…and found a Newfoundland snake in the rocks.

Not really.  They don't have snakes in Newfoundland except for a few garter snakes.  Another reason we love Newfoundland.

We just enjoyed taking a few moments to sit and watch the waves on what ended up being our last day trip in Newfoundland.

After we left Durrell and Twillingate, we drove through the little coastal town of Little Harbour.

They had these little boats mounted atop the railing on one end of the harbor.

And then we headed back home across the causeway leaving Twillingate behind us.