The Education And Feeding of Magical Creatures (i.e. Nancy & Mark)

Local beers

Day 86     September 3, 2014

Terra Nova National Park to St. John’s, Newfoundland

Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada

Being the social movers and shakers that we are, we had a breakfast invitation for this morning. We’d been invited over to George and Pearl’s nearby motorhome for a hearty meal and conversation before we took off for St. John’s.

George and Pearl

We’d met George and Pearl the night before. They were native Newfoundlanders who lived only about a half hour from Terra Nova National Park. They were doing a little staycation at Terra Nova NP.

We feasted on bacon, eggs (I skipped the eggs..hate ‘em), toast, and homemade jam. And add to that, funny conversation. Funny  ‘cause, at times, their accents were hard to understand, and funny at other times ‘cause they were really funny and nice peeps.

Before we departed the campground, George and Pearl came by the space shuttle and gave us a jar of Pearl’s homemade canned/jarred beets. (months later, when we were back home, we cracked open the jar and ate them all in one sitting. they were absolutely “to die for!”)

On the drive to St. John’s, we listened with interest to a radio talk show discussion about what people who live in Newfoundland and Labrador call themselves. Newfoundlanders? Labradorians? Newfoundland and Labradorians? Believe it or not, this was quite a controversial discussion, and quite educational for us, to say the least!

Back on the road. A typical moose warning

Woohooo!!! We’ve arrived!

Where we were…..the little red dot….

We checked into the campground at Pippy Park, just on the outskirts of St. John’s, and then drove into the city. WOW!! St. John’s was colorful, hilly, and edgy! More rough around the edges than I’d expected, but all the more interesting!!

St. John’s

Colorful houses. Downtown St. John’s

More colorful houses on hills. Downtown St. John’s

Colorful houses on hills. Downtown St. John’s

Colorful houses. Downtown St. John’s

Colorful houses. Downtown St. John’s

Mailbox

The oldest store on the oldest street in the oldest city in North America!

Downtown St. John’s

Trapper John’s. We’ll visit this pub in the next day or two.

St. John’s would be the big turn-a-around point of our trip. To celebrate, we’d already decided that we would treat ourselves to lots of eating out while we were there. This turned out to be a good decision, as we found that St. Johns was a foodie haven!

Mark Wienke finds Winky’s food truck. How perfect!

We had the most awesome dinner at a restaurant called The Club. We chose The Club, because we happened to get a parking spot right out front, and we were hungry…pure luck. We stuffed ourselves with local Quidi Vidi beers, gourmet soup, salmon, miscellaneous sides, and a gourmet burger. Then we finished all that off with the most freakin’ amazing cake…parsnip cake!! Parsnip cake is the more delicious cousin to carrot cake.

Local beers

Gorgeous and delicious food @ The Club

Parsnip cake!!!

Now that I think back on our time in St. John’s, I’m pretty sure this is where that extra four pounds crept up on me. And it was all worth it, even though, seven months later, I’m still trying to get rid of it!!

Is It Groundhog Day, Or Are We Just Driving On The Same Road Again?!

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!