Wildflowers

Most of these wildflowers were photographed near the Rose Blanche Lighthouse in southwestern Newfoundland in a small amount of soil since the area is very rocky. Signs with their names accompanied many of the flowers such as the buttercup so I think that I have named them correctly. But I’m not a botanist so if I have incorrectly named a flower, please send a comment to tell me what you think the correct name is.

The red Pitcher Plant is the provincial flower of Newfoundland. Bakeapples are a favorite jam plant that produces a white flower and an orange berry that resembles a raspberry with large seeds but has it’s own unique flavor. Next is the white three-toothed cinquefoil. Sometimes the bushy white Labrador Tea Rose is used in a beverage. The small Harebell or Blue Bell is very delicate. Another purple flower is the wild Iris. The yellow flower is the Common Buttercup. The large white Queen Ann’s Lace, Purple Clover, Daisies and Yellow Buttercup often cover the hillsides. The Fireweed beside me isn’t only grown in Alaska but you often see hillsides covered with it. As you can see from the two pictures, the fireweed booms that were beautiful are almost gone. That is a sign that COLD WEATHER IS COMING SOON. I’ve more stories and photos but they will need to be written on the blog later. It’s time to leave Newfoundland.

Vikings

At first I wasn’t too impressed with the Viking museum and its copies of artifacts and items behind glass of long ago.

The modern building of the L’anse Aux Meadows UNESCO World Heritage Site showed a sample of the recreated boat that brought the Vikings to North America. (It seemed very small.) Nails and a cloak pin that the archaeologist Anne Stine and her husband, Helge Ingstad used to authenticate the site as to a Viking 1000AD village site, were interesting. At first the distant sod houses didn’t look like much but on closer inspection, they were interesting. The site was more real as I walked the boardwalk to the recreated houses and met the enactors near the sites where the artifacts were found. They not only showed us what life was like 1000 years ago but also invited us to handle the reproduced artifacts. I could see them weave and make yarn and even look through the fence and see the icebergs like the Vikings did. But I think that Terry looks a little too happy to be handling an axe.

Churches Near Water

I wondered why so many of the churches we have seen are built by water. When I saw a photo of a bride, dressed for her wedding, getting on a boat to go to the church; I realized that a boat was the usual mode of transportation.

I was told that most of the roads that are in Newfoundland have been built in the last 50 or 60 years. Most of the churches were built long before then. It makes sense that when your mode of transportation is via water that the churches are located conveniently beside it.

We were riding a ferryboat to Fogo Island when I met a family who was returning to the island where the parents lived when they were children. Somehow the father brought the conversation to religion. I asked what churches were on the island. He said that most churches are Anglican, United Church of Canada and Roman Catholic and that their social life was centered around the church they attended. The upper class attended the Anglican, the middle class the United Church of Canada and the poorer people, which included most of the Irish, attended the Roman Catholic. He was Anglican and married a Roman Catholic. He commented, “My family wasn’t happy with that.”

I noticed that most cemeteries, even those that aren’t close to a church building, are named for a particular denomination. I wonder if this causes problems in families even after they are dead.

Newfoundland has many lighthouses along its shoreline. Some of them are still operating today but they are automatic now rather than having a lighthouse keeper.

Since I didn’t have Internet for so long, I took lots of pictures that are in one big group. Therefore I’m not putting chronological pictures on the blog but rather impressions of Newfoundland.

Most people won’t care where a particular lighthouse is located so I’m not spending the time through the Newfie literature to locate them. If you want to know where a particular lighthouse is located, I will do research on it and try to tell you. Email me or leave a comment.

We are going on the road again so I probably won't have internet until after we arrive back in Nova Scotia which is scheduled for August 21.

Newfie Lighthouses

Jiggs Dinner

A traditional Newfie meal is the Jiggs dinner. It is a combination of cabbage, turnips, potatoes, carrots and salt beef. Yellow split peas are cooked until they become a creamy solid they call “pea pudding.” When we were in Elliston, which the Newfies call the “Root Cellar Capitol of the world,” we saw where they used to store the vegetables and salt beef in root cellars.

We were going to leave our friends, Gordon and Gertie last week but Gertie said that she wanted us to stay and have a Jiggs dinner with her and Gordon, daughter and son-in-law, Dale and Brian and her sister Edna. (Dale and Brian are the young couple in the photo and Edna is serving the food.)How could we say no to that? Gertie is a great cook. The meal was delicious!

Twillingate

Jerry and Suzy sent me a comment that said “What a wonderful experience! We SKPs are pretty friendly too, and we have learned that it is easy to strike up a conversation in lots of places.”

Yes, the Escapees (SKPs) are a friendly RV group. RVers are friendly but when is the last time that people in a motel knocked on your door and said, “Let’s go to Dinner?”

The Boomer SKPs are especially friendly. We met Gaye and Chet last year in Quartzsite, AZ who invited us to visit their home in Twillingate, Newfoundland. (Because of the turret or belvedere, I think that their home in Newfoundland looks like a castle.)

We left messages but were unable to contact them by phone so we knocked on their door. In spite of the fact that they were painting their house and exhibiting Gaye’s fiber art in an art show for the Fish, Folk, and Fun Festival; they made us feel very welcome. Chet gave us a tour of the home. Gaye told us that several Boomers were coming to their house for a potluck dinner on Wednesday and suggested that we might want to join them.

She also suggested that we visit the church that is now a museum and listen to a concert given by Steven Rogers. He was very talented and played, hymns, classical music and jigs from several countries on the organ, tin pipe, and accordion. Terry isn’t a musical person but even he enjoyed it very much.

Twillingate is known for their icebergs. A huge iceberg had actually closed the harbor this spring. Even though the ice wasn’t in Twillingate anymore, we traveled about 5 kilometers away in Durrell where we saw several pieces of it.

We visited several Boomers at their boondock area and made plans for Wednesday.

On Wednesday, we left our RV in Lewisporte and traveled by car to Twillingate. Since the food would be cold by the time we arrived, I brought the fixings for a potato casserole and knew that Elaine and Mary would let me fix it in their RV. The problem was that Elaine and Mary were gone when we arrived. I asked a SKP if he knew where they were and he told me they had gone with his wife Pricilla to hear Steven Rogers but I was invited to use their kitchen. So I did.

We had a great time getting hugs from the Boomers and information on where they had visited. Of course, we gave them information on the places we had visited too. The food and fellowship with SKP Boomers is always great!

Newfoundland Water

I’ve been asked to describe Newfoundland. How do you describe a province about half the size of Texas in a few words or pictures?

Newfoundland is an island with most of the people living along the coastline. Water is described as ocean, coves, bays, rivers, lakes, ponds, waterfalls, brooks, and tickles. Water is also described as salty, fresh, or as a combination of salty and fresh. They have words to describe the depth of the water and the speed of its flow. Of course, frozen water becomes icebergs. I will do another blog on all the lighthouses that we have seen.

A picture is worth a thousand words. I hope the internet will print these pictures.

Gertie and Gord

Newfoundland is the last province or state that we have visited since we began living in our RV for the past twelve years.

The people around here are different. The folks we have encountered live by the golden rule and do for others, as they want people to do for them. They trust others. In the northwestern part of Newfoundland, it is hard to find enough soil in the rocky ground to put in a garden so Newfies use the ground that has been dug up to put in roads. You will see gardens in the ditches of the highway several miles from where you see houses. When wood is ordered for the winter, it is delivered to the side of the road. No one seems to steal food or wood.

They are the friendliest people we have met. They wave at everyone and talk to you if you are in line at the grocery store or if you are visiting the same place.

Gertie and Gord came to us while we were at Wal-mart. Since they saw our license plate from Texas, they inquired if we knew . . . I thought, “there are millions of people in Texas, what are the chances of us knowing someone they know?” Gertie said “They RV too and have a Texas address.”

If they are from the RV Escapees Club, the odds are more favorable. Only about 10,000 people use the Escapees mail service and address.

Gertie continued, “Their names are Martha and Gene __________.

I replied, “Yes, we know them. We visited with them in Greensboro, North Carolina, Quartzsite, Arizona, Fairbanks, Alaska and even in a small town in Nebraska.”

Gertie said that Martha and Gene parked the RV in their yard. “Do you want to park your RV there too?”. . . “ Stay as long as you like.”. . . Do you have laundry you want to wash?”

Yes, we are parked in their yard. It’s so good to meet local people when you travel because they know where the tourist places are located and where to park and shop. But what are the chances that people would invite strangers into their home where you live?

Almost Cousins

An update on the accident is that they don't have a replacement windshield on the island. A glass repairman put a lot of clear goop on the windshield and then we added the wide Scotch tape that is used to mail packages. Except for some small ground glass, the windshield is holding together and will be replaced when we get to Nova Scotia or the USA. The cabinet was put back together. Fortunately not much was broken. We are continuing the trip in Newfoundland.

The people in Newfoundland are so friendly! We visited Pauline Miller’s brothers and sister-in-law when we were in Corner Brook. Pauline is the wife of Terry’s cousin Ronald Miller of Edmonton but the brothers and sister-in-law aren’t related to us.

Elsie and Fred invited us to their home with the million-dollar view of Humber Arm and the Humber River from their patio. They drove us down Hwy 450 to the end of the bay. On the return trip we stopped and ate codfish at a little restaurant and watched the sun go down. Then the other four brothers arrived at Fred and Elsie’s home to visit with us. A granddaughter arrived to spend the night.

They had gathered information on Newfoundland and shared it with us. It is so good to get information from local people because they know where to go and what to see.

Elsie is an accomplished artist. She painted all the pictures you see in the photos. The brothers talked about golf and joked about a fox who stole golf balls and stored a pile of them in the woods.

I have pictures but the internet connection reads that I have "interrupted service" and will not let me upload them.

We had fun with the family and felt that we are almost cousins.