Thursday, June 15 - This begins our third week on the road. Seems we've been away much longer, but time is always a relevant thing. So a little story... Seems one of the local fire departments, mostly volunteer, somehow managed to buy a new pumper truck. Sounds like the County. The boys of the volunteer brigade, along with their part-time Chief, sat down one evening after the newly arrived truck was shining in the station to discuss what to do with the old pumper. There were lots of suggestions, until one of the old timers came up with this idea: "She still works some, so why don't we use her for false alarms?"

On the Newfoundland front, as mentioned, we decided to head east, because the weather has been very cool, and chances of seeing serious icebergs are much diminished because of heavy ice flows that have been plugging up the outer ports. So bergs are out in the gulf, and boats can't get out to look at them. But much more serious is the impact this is having on local communities. As mentioned previously, several boats got stuck in the ice off of La Scie, one of which sank. On our way across the TCH, we stopped for lunch at a little roadside restaurant, and talked to the owner, a hard-working woman who has run the place for nearly 20 years. She told us that this was the worst spring ever. Normally, her parking lot would be full of trucks delivering the catch to points east and west. This year, not one truck so far, because the fishermen can't get out. It's hurt her business drastically, and she's miles from the coast. Talk about collateral damage.

So she convinced us that it would be a waste of time to go to La Scie. Instead we decided to go to Triton. Get your Nfld map out folks. It's past Robert's Arm north on highway 380. At Triton, there were a few small bergs in the bay, but again the ice flow was very much in evidence. So we went on to the end of the road at Brighton, and more of the same. When you looked out to the sea, loads of ice everywhere. So we did see a few bergs, but not the biggies we'd been hoping for.

I stopped in at the Brighton Town Office, just to see how things were going, and chatted with a lovely lady who is probably the town clerk. Only a couple of fishermen live in the village, and their wives work, so they're not in big trouble. A lot of the area is devoted to mussel production, so because that takes place in the inner bays, they aren't affected. It's the crab, lobster and cod boys that have the problems. By the way, she mentioned, when I told her I lived near Brighton Ont, that someone had been in a couple of weeks ago who had lived in Brighton England, and now lived in Brighton Ont, so had to visit Brighton Nfld. She gave me two pins for being such a nice guy.

In Triton, we saw a sign that pointed to Freddie's Lookout. Maybe from there we could see some bergs in the distance. (You can tell we're truly on a mission,) So off on this little side road we went, which turned out to be a narrow heavy gravel trail that went one way up a steep hillside. We had little choice but to crawl up in low gear, just to get to a place where we might be able to turn around. It was a little tense, and to make matters worse, we saw nothing of note once we got to the lookout. Got turned around, and crawled back down in low gear. We stopped at the local bakery, chatted with some locals, and they agreed maybe they should post a sign saying R.V.'s not advised to try Freddie's Lookout.

Today, we motored on, stopping in Gander to tour the North Atlantic Aviation Museum. I could easily write a page, as it was very interesting. Suggest you google it to see what they have to tell you. Very interesting displays about the huge role Gander played in WWII, about the development of commercial aviation that saw Gander as a central player, and about the decline of the town and airfield that followed the implementation of jet planes, which don't need to refuel before crossing the pond. We also visited a monument outside of town dedicated to the 250 American servicemen who died in 1985 in Canada's worst air disaster They were coming back from duty in the Sinai, via Frankfurt. Stopped in Gander to refuel, and the plane went down shortly after take-off, killing all aboard. There was no definitive explanation for the crash, as 5 members of the review panel blamed ice on the wings, and the other 4 voted for an explosion that may have occurred. Never clearly answered. There's a very nice memorial overlooking Lake Gander.

And now we're in Terra Nova National Park, booked in for three nights. Already did a 3 k walk around a lovely trail that surrounds our camping area. And several hikes planned for the next 2 or 3 days. Beef bourginone (sp?) for dinner. A little libation. Some sunshine that allowed us to sit outside in a chair for an hour out of the breeze. And warmer temps hoped for, if forecasts are correct. Life is good.

That's it for now. More later. Stay tuned.