June 6, 2006

June 6, 2006

Portland Creek Pond to Port aux Basques, Newfoundland

YEAR 2 DAY 354

 

Today was sunny and mild.

This morning I did a bit of maintenance before preparing for departure from Mountain Waters Resort. I did some patching on the underside of Teddy's nylon kennel, his new "tent". It was quite inexpensive, and looks like it's not going to last very long. I reinstalled some screws which had worked loose in the bedroom moulding. I had expected that to happen because of an error I made when installing the screws. I'm going to have to buy larger, longer screws. I applied the Labrador decal to our travel map on the side of the trailer. While I finished up draining the waste holding tanks, Joanne took Bo for an obedience session. Finally, we departed, heading south on Hwy. 430.

We drove long and hard today, deciding that we wanted to catch the ferry early tomorrow morning back to Nova Scotia. Our first stop of the day was at The Arches, a scenic view point. There is a large rock formation along the shore where the water has eroded 3 "caves" all the way through the rock, forming arches. We walked around, taking some photos, and chatting with 4 women ( with 3 large dogs ) in 2 large motorhomes that had also stopped to see The Arches. We continued on our way south, stopping at a picnic site at Bakers Brook to have lunch.

We turned southwest onto TCH 1 at Deer Lake. At Corner Brook we turned into the city, and found our way to an RV dealer. They did not have any of the RV repair parts I needed. We found our way to Corner Brook's large shopping mall. Joanne went into Wal-Mart and I went into Canadian Tire. I bought some hardware and supplies I needed, then had a propane tank refilled. I was supposed to go into Wal-Mart to do some comparison shopping on a few items, but by the time I was finished reinstalling the propane tank, Joanne was back from Wal-Mart. She had checked on a few items for me, and they didn't have them. So while Joanne went to Dominion for some groceries, I went back into Canadian Tire again and bought the rest of the items I needed. While waiting for Joanne to finish at Dominion, I installed my expensive new ObusForme seat back and seat cushion. I find Lanoire's driver's seat not as comfortable as I would like. When Joanne returned from Dominion, I pulled over to the Canadian Tire gas bar to adjust the air pressure in the trailer tires. After manoeuvering into a tight spot to get at the air hose, I discovered that their compressor did not produce a high enough pressure for the trailer tires < gritting teeth >.

We continued south on Hwy. 430. We stopped to fill up with diesel at St. Georges. We finally stopped for supper about an hour from Port aux Basques, in an abandoned lot with a burned out building, in the middle of nowhere. Joanne quickly cooked the salt cod cakes she bought earlier at Dominion. Because the slides were retracted, we couldn't get at the rear cupboard to get the pickled rhubarb I bought the other day. Darn ! Pickled rhubarb goes so well with salt cod cakes.

We pushed on to Port aux Basques, arriving about 10:00 P.M.. We paid our fee for tomorrow morning's ferry, then parked for the night in a large industrial lot adjacent to the ferry terminal. They wouldn't let us into the ferry loading lot because there was an overnight ferry getting ready to load and leave. We could either move from the industrial lot after midnight, after tonight's ferry had departed, or tomorrow morning before 7:00 A.M. for loading of the 8:00 A.M. ferry.

Joanne made a lunch to take on the ferry tomorrow, then showered while I did today's journal entry.

DSK