Arches Provincial Park
Day 85 September 2, 2014
Portland Creek to Terra Nova National Park, Newfoundland, Canada
Some people don’t like the fact that, when you travel around Newfoundland, inevitably, usually, you’ll have to backtrack over the the same roads you’ve already driven on to get back to somewhere else you want or need to go, or just to get back to where you started. Some people will throw around words like, “Groundhog Day,” or “boring” when describing this predicament. But not us. We only used the word “lucky” to describe our situation.
When we left L’Anse aux Meadows, we had to travel south, down the same road…the only road…to get back to the split in the road that would take us east to get to St. Johns. This was pretty cool, ‘cause we got to see some of the places we’d seen on the way north, only from a completely different angle. This made us happy. It was like seeing old friends again!
East coast magic.
Arches Provincial Park
Arches Provincial Park
Near Gros Morne National Park
Near Gros Morne National Park
Near Gros Morne National Park
Headin’ east on the Trans Canadian Highway
Moose?? Where??
Happy Road Tripping Nancy
And speaking of old friends…Just outside of Gros Morne National Park, we stopped for fuel at an Esso station and ran into a couple from the U.S. state of Washington that we’d met on the fjiord boat tour three days earlier. When we’d first met them, they had assumed that we’d flown out east from California and then had rented a car to travel around Newfoundland, just as they had done. They were shocked to see that we were actually in an RV and had driven all the way from California. Trust me, this fact added a lot to our “cool factor” when we were so far away from California! I reckon we were just about the coolest people in Newfoundland at the time!
We bid our friends farewell, and continued our eastern pilgrimage. Before stopping for lunch, we drove past Grand Falls-Windsor, a blip on the map whose motto is “Perfectly Centered.” Hmm, must be smack dab in the center of Newfoundland!
I was really excited to spot a restaurant in Badger that made Canadian and Chinese food. We’d been eating such simple food on the road, that Chinese food would be a real treat! So, we stopped at Helen’s. And I was so bummed to find out that they didn’t have Chinese food that day, ‘cause the Chinese chef had off work that day. Oh well. There are worse things in life than a lack of Chinese food, and I wasn’t gonna let this little hitch get me down.
No Chinese food today!
As we headed east, we stopped at a scenic look out point near Gambo. There was a guy there selling fresh veggies from his little produce truck. We bought a bunch of stuff from him, super happy to have fresh home-grown veggies. He also gave us a gigantic turnip for the dogs. We never did feed it to the dogs. While on the road, we were afraid of feeding them something out of their ordinary diet. Didn’t need any more doggie gastric or digestive problems while we were all living together in our small Space Shuttle!
Scenic lookout near Gambo
Scenic lookout near Gambo
The final stop for the day was at the campground at Terra Nova National Park. Once again, a stellar Canadian National Park. It was the first National Park established in Newfoundland and Labrador, and it is also the eastern most National Park in all of Canada. It also had the most beautiful bathrooms I’d ever seen at a campground!
Airstream Moho-A-Go-Go 