201708 Gone To The Rock

We woke bright and early to have a quick breakfast with Arnie and Rita before heading out and..... home, sigh! Mixed feelings really. We have had a wonderful time at Furby's Cove and feel really at home with Arnie and Rita, but ... it's time to go home.   Arnie gave us a drive to the airport in Gander.  It meant 3 adults in the front seat of his truck, but it really didn't feel cramped.  I was in the middle of course so I just leaned Karl's way ... nothing wrong with a little togetherness LOL!!  It was a 3-hour drive, but it went quickly because we chatted the whole way.  Arnie and Rita are planning a trip out west to Fort McMurray in September. They'll drive out and stay several months so that they can be there for the birth of their their grandchild in December.  Lots of exciting plans, hope all goes well with their trip and that they stay in touch with the Ontario branch of the Wassings!!  As things turn out, our trip home will be a long one!  ...

Our last day in Furby's Cove, sigh......  We had been talking to Arnie about perhaps going out for a ride in his boat (yesterday was too windy), and the fog today was as thick as pea soup, so not a safe thing to do!! Sigh... But, we spent the day visiting and walking around the cove, just catching up with each other and that was wonderful as well. As I said to Rita, it just gives us more reason to come back next year!! Karl and I went for yet another walk out to the road.  Would you believe that, although we are still puffing and panting by the top, it's getting easier every time we do it? Who knows, if we stayed another few weeks, maybe we could jog up LOL!!  What will remain a memory of this trip is the raspberries. Interesting to note that there are bushes on both sides of the road, hundreds of wild raspberries "everywhere" so it's easy to have just a little snack anywhere along the road - a lot of the berries are ripe right now!! The sun came out just after lu...

Today was a lazy day.  It started cloudy and cool and everyone more or less slept in a bit. This was okay because Arnie and Rita were having a jet lag day and we have fallen into a relaxed vacation mode.  Then Rita spoiled us by cooking up a big bacon and egg breakfast This was followed by a lot of conversation and a walk out to the road of course. Today the wind was coming from the opposite direction, and instead of helping us up the hills and supporting us o the way down,  we had to fight it on the way up and hold back from letting it push us downwards. After lunch, I regret to say that it became a television day for Arnie and me, while Joanne and Rita did get in a game of scrabble. Towards mid-afternoon we decided to make another trip into the cemetery and managed to find and clear four more headstones from their weedy overgrowth. Later it was a tea and cookie snacks while Karl of course had a great mini-feast of scallops. Followed by some more TV (due to the cloudy da...

Yesterday, the day dawned bright and sunny with almost no wind. There was a hurricane that had passed through the Atlantic over the past few days.  We were told by the weather gurus that it would miss Newfoundland, but I really wonder whether we were hit by some of the outer bands and that's what caused that windstorm yesterday. Unfortunately, over the past week while we were on our own, we had spread out our "stuff" all through the house here.  So, knowing that Arnie and Rita are arriving today, it would be time to tidy our stuff into just one room LOL!! So as Karl headed off to the airport in Gander around 9:30 to pick them up, it was my day to putter, tidy, and do some chores. (Sigh... even on holidays!) It was exciting initially because their flight was cancelled due to mechanical problems with the plane.  Well thank God they found that out before they were in the air and not "after"!! It seems that Westjet has as backup plan for this type of thing because t...

Today the skies are cloudy and the wind just kept getting stronger!  By mid to late morning, we checked the internet forecast for Harbour Breton, and they were calling for winds up to 45 km/hr with gusts up to 86 km/hr.  Boy do I ever believe that.   There were times today that it felt like I could be blown over!! The high side of the wind was that walking out to the highway (yep we still went), the wind was at our back and pushing us "UP" the hill LOL.  And then on the way down, it kept us from falling/slipping forward on the steep hill.  So, you see, nature does have its perks. And the whitecaps in the cove were quite pretty. Despite the cold and wind, there were men using the excavator to replace a culvert down by the waterfront.  Karl was there most of that time supervising and chatting with the workers whenever they stopped long enough.  It seems (from Karl's report) that they did a great job - and one of them turned out to be Rita's cousin Dan - ...

It seems that we are falling into a pattern here in Furby's Cove.  Now typically that would not be a good thing, but the peace and quiet lifestyle just feels right.  Yes, there is television here, but as yet we haven't even turned it on.  Lots to do without it, at least as visitors! The weather today was mostly sunny and although it didn't hit 20 C., it felt warm!  Instead of our walk up the road to the highway, today we decided to drive in to Harbour Breton and see if we could find some of the trails we were told about. Our first stop was actually the dump to drop off a bag since it was along our way.  Would you believe that the view from the edge of the dump overlooks a vista of mountains and water, something people around Kitchener would pay a fortune to see from the windows of their home!!  But that's the thing about this part of Newfoundland, everything is like that.  So I wonder why there aren't more people living in Newfoundland - I think they w...

We were pleasantly surprised by the weather today.  According to the forecast for Harbour Breton, there was a 60% chance of rain in the afternoon.  As it turns out, it was mostly cloudy, but we saw sun off and on during the day, enough to keep spirits up! (We are both fans of sunny days)  Well today, after the long drive from St John's yesterday, was what Karl calls a jet lag day.  No real plans, just relax and see what happens.   We did our walks out to the highway and noticed, at least in the morning, that the climb is just a little bit easier than the first few times we did it.  Just think, if we stayed for a few weeks, maybe we could jog up the hill. (LOL, "NOT". If you have ever seen a picture of the road, you'd understand).  But we made it and even did our little dance at the highway - once we could catch our breath!! Just as we were coming back down the hill on our morning walk, we saw something jump 2 or 3 times in the Cove just offshore from t...

Well it was fun to have our day in the big city but it also felt good to be going home ... oops, I mean to Arnie and Rita's place.  It is sooooo quiet here and somehow we both need just a few more days without the busy-ness and info overload of our lives in the civilized world in Kitchener.  Sigh......  There was less traffic this time, even on the Trans Canada, but then again it's a Tuesday and our trip out to St. John's was a Sunday. We did see several cars parked here and there along the road with either jars or baskets of what looked like fruit on their hood. Blair had told us that the jars are probably partridge berry preserves or bakeapple (a type of berry also known as cloudberry). And I am guessing that the baskets held blueberries and  raspberries. There were tons and tons of blueberries along the trail we walked with Blair last night and we made sure we got a good sampling !   We stopped for lunch in Gander and had, you guessed it, fish and chips! (Kar...

This has been another simply idyllic summer day, and perfect weather to do a bit of exploring in St. John's!! After perusing the motel's "free continental breakfast" that constituted cereal/milk, muffins and coffee, we decided that it would be a nice treat to eat out.  Thanks to the internet, we found a place called the Gov'nor's Inn that advertised a gluten-free breakfast option.  It was really close to where we are staying and true  to their word had a scrumptious breakfast (albeit a little pricey, sigh). The building is actually a hotel that looks like something taken right out of 18th century England with dark wood, brass, greenish floral wallpaper etc.  (Seriously sounds awful but looked great) Then we decided we should start out by going to Signal Hill (one of the 'must sees' we were told about by Blair and his Mom).  Again, thanks to technology, our GPS took us directly there, but on the way we were treated to views of street after street of hou...

As much as we love Furby's Cove, we decided to head out and experience a little more of the Rock today. So we packed up the truck and headed off to St. John's to see the sights and to connect with one of Karl's old friends from the School Board. The weather was nowhere near as bad as we expected from the forecast (the weather people are usually wrong anyway).  We had a light misty rain at first, but as the day wore on, it settled down to just cloud.  So, although we didn't have sunshine, it was still a good day to travel. The huge rocky hills/mountains around Furby's Cove soon gave way to flatter land and lots of lakes, and the trees just went on and on. The forests in Newfoundland just never seem to end. We saw sooo few cars on the first leg of the trip (Highway 360), maybe a dozen the whole way. But once we got to the TransCanada, it was the exact opposite, it took us 5 minutes to turn left out of a gas station!! Seems we weren't the only ones going to/f...

Another glorious sunny day! It got up to  22 C., it was heavenly!! (Eat yer heart out, Arnie!) I suppose we could call this another day of rest and relaxing.  However, we need to keep our steps up for Fitbit so this gave us the incentive to brave the steep hills on the road to the highway twice again today!  By steep, I mean almost vertical. Not to moan, but our Fitbit calls it the equivalent of  24 flights of stairs, sigh.  Who needs a Nordictrac!! Lots more reading today.  Karl actually finished his Clive Cussler book, Ghost Ship, and is on to another book that looks to have more than a thousand pages ..... I am also on to my second book, but it's just so nice to drift ..... here we really have no need to rush off anywhere. 'Rushing' is not in the Newfie dictionary out here on the Rock! There is an forgotten cemetery next door to Arnie and Rita's house which was part of an old abandoned church.  The church is long gone, but the cemetery is overgrown ...

What a magnificent day! It was totally full of sunshine, bright blue skies, and really comfortable temperatures in the low 20s.   We started off trying to make breakfast, only to discover that Rita has this cool space-age stove that is all electronic-button-controlled and impossible for anyone of normal intelligence to figure out, so breakfast was a kielbossa sandwich. Thanks to the modern convenience of texting we got some answers from Arnie and we are able to now have a hot supper (cod, of course). After brekkie we decided to go for the morning walk, even without the presence of our doggie to motivate us. From the house to the highway is about a mile of gravel road including some really, really, really huge and really, really, really steep hills. When we finally reached the highway we deliberated whether to simply flop down for a spell, or just puff and pant for a while before turning around to do the return trip. (For all you Fitbit types, this is a 3,900-step climbing adventure...

Our newest "Grand Adventure" actually started last night when Arnie and Rita (i.e., our house-swap partners) dropped us off at a motel near the Toronto Airport.   Since our plane was leaving early, we set our alarm for 4 a.m. and believe it or not we practically collided in an attempt to turn it off 10 min. before it went off!!   ;-)  We've both flown before, but we never tire of the adventure of being able to travel thousands of miles in just hours.  Okay so maybe more than just a few hours, ... but still!   It's interesting to note that once our plane went beyond the Toronto/Montreal area, the number of towns or for that fact, houses, became less and less.  Once we were over Nova Scotia, even the farms almost disappeared! (From the sky, the farms look almost like blocks of different shades/colours ...  kind of like one of my favourite things ... a quilt ! )  We landed in Halifax and then went the last leg of our trip to Gander on a propeller pla...

Wow ... we are off to Newfoundland again! We've been there several times and continue to go for several reasons, one of those being that the folks there are the friendliest, kindest, and most jovial collection of people on our planet. I have been told this numerous times, and when I first got there I instantly understood why everybody says that! This trip is a little different as we are doing a house-swap with Arnie and Rita (Joanne's brother and his wife). They are coming Tuesday to stay at our place for about 2 weeks. On Wednesday they take us to the airport and we head to their house on The Rock, overlooking the ocean and watching the whales do what whales do. And to make it really sweet, with a house-and-car swap and our decision to use some of the Air Miles collected over the years, this trip is gratis...free...no cost...nada... Gotta love that word 'FREE' ... Woo-hoo !! We will be in Furby's Cove, a small remote hamlet, maybe 15 houses, about 40 minute...