Off To A Good Start . . .

September 2, 2012 Uncategorized

Off To A Good Start . . .

Today was the first real day of this year’s Eastern Gypsy Journal Rally. Although today was Early Bird Parking Day, we already have a lot of RV’s here. Some came over after the FMCA rally wrapped up in Indianapolis last week, and others just came in early to avoid the Labor Day Weekend. Whatever, the more the merrier.

The promised rain pretty much held off all day, and we never really got slammed. Rigs came in in clumps of 6-8, with plenty of time in between to get them parked.

Jan spent the day helping get things ready for registration which opened at noon. At the same time the vendors started coming in and getting set up.

We finally shut things down at 5pm, and then Nick and Terry, and Jan and I headed out for dinner at Pullman Bay Restaurant.

Pullman Bay donated gift certificates to our rally, and also posted this welcoming sign for us.

Our meal was very good, and the dessert was even better. Jan said her coconut cream pie was the best she remembers having, and my butterscotch pie was delicious.

Getting back to the rig I spent some time going through the gift certificates I collected and getting them put in envelopes to give out tomorrow night. We always do the restaurant door prizes the first night to allow people to utilize them before the rally ends on Friday morning.

Tomorrow we’ll do the last of the parking, and then get things kicked off tomorrow night with our first evening get-together.

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Thought for the Day:

Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. – Ronald Reagan

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Here’s some more of our trip to Newfoundland 3 years ago this month.

Icebergs and Puffins…Not!

Originally posted on September 6, 2009

After availing ourselves of the free breakfast at our hotel, we headed out for the 280 mile drive to Twillingate, an island peninsular north-north west of St. John’s.

Twillingate is known as Iceberg Capitol of the World and has boat tours to see them, and also puffins and whales. And we wanted to see them all.

But on our way out of town we stopped to take some pictures of the town. It’s a very quaint town of about 100,000 people, with brightly colored buildings, and, of course, the beautiful backdrop of the countryside.

St Johns 1

St Johns 2

St Johns 3

And St. John’s has it own version of the icon statues we’ve seen in other towns. In this case, it’s an mermaid perched on an iceberg. Here’s an example.

St Johns Mermaid

On our way out of town, and talking over our schedule, we decided to stay an extra day if we could. So I called the RV park in Louisbourg to see if they could accommodate us for another day. When they said they could, I then called the Ferry to see if we could move our return trip from the 8th to the 9th. No problem. Five minutes and it was done. Aren’t cell phones wonderful!

Along the way, Jan finally had a moose sighting. It didn’t appear scared at all. It just stood there like a statue.

Moose Sighting

About lunch time we stopped at place called “Mary Brown’s Famous Chicken and Taters”. This is a Newfoundland chain that seems to be everywhere here. The ‘taters’ are fried potato wedges. I’m not sure it would beat “The Colonel”, but it was good.

After lunch we drove across the street to a combination gift shop/visitor’s center, where we had another moose sighting. This time it was a whole family. And, again, they seemed strangely unafraid of us. It was like we could have just walked right up and petted them.

Moose Sighting 2

A while later we stopped at a scenic pull-out to stretch our legs and take in the view. Noticing one of the telescopes you see at these spots, I walked over to take a look.

And I was surprised to see who the manufacturer is.

I know this family, or, at least, I think I do. I assume they still own it, since it’s the same name.

I took piano lessons in the late 50′s, early 60′s from Dot Cain. Her husband owned this company and they must be doing good, since I see them everywhere, and now in Canada, too.

Small World!

Along the way we saw a lot of interesting flora.

Berries

Flowers 1

Cones

Flowers 2

Arriving in Twillingate, we found a small, neat fishing village with a lot of local charm and atmosphere.

Twillingate 1

Twillingate 2

Twillingate 3

On our way into town, we stopped at the place that offers the boat tours to sign up for a tour tomorrow morning. And were very disappointed to find out that both the icebergs and the puffins had gone south for the summer. All we could see were whales and dolphins. Bummer!

We decide to pass, so went to check into our hotel. While we were registering, the manager said “Susan, come out here. These people sound just like you!”

Turns out the reason she sounded like us is that she’s from Houston too. She was here visiting the manager and his family. She lives in The Woodlands, and also worked at Johnson Space Center, like me, although she was just starting about the time I left. We even worked in some of the same buildings at JSC.

Another Small World moment!

After getting set up in our room, we took a drive out to Crow Head, an area at the tip of the island, that juts out into the North Atlantic, with some spectacular scenery just as the sun was going down.