Our RV Adventures

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.

Sun on Water

Crow Head 1

Crow Head 2

Crow Head 3

Crow Head 4

Crow Head 5

Coming back to the hotel, we had a very good meal at the restaurant, and then turned in after a long day.

sfgsfdg

Jan and I started out this nice dreary morning by having breakfast in downtown Celina at The Fountain, a really good small town dinner, right on the square. And there were several other groups of rally vendors and attendees were already there when we arrived. And The Fountain is always good about support the rally by donating gift certificates.

After we finished our meal, Jan and I walked across the street to the courthouse square to take in the small Farmer’s Market that was set up there. Jan found some Halloween jewelry that she just had to have. She has jewelry for just about every holiday.

After we left the Market, we drove over to a small house next door to the City Library. Here they sell used books left over from the library or donated for sale. In fact Jan found two J. A. Jance books she had been looking for, and only paid 25 cents each. Nice!

Getting back to the rig I decided to get in a nap in preparation for the upcoming rally. Gotta get my rest in while I can.

About 4pm Chris and Charles Yust dropped by for a while. Chris and Charles are agents for GMAC insurance, and handle both mine and Nick’s insurance.

A little after 5pm Nick and Terry, and Jan and I head over to Pizza Hut where we met Joe and Marcia Jones for dinner. We had a great time getting to know them, and the pizza was really good too.

Getting back to the rig, the rain that we had been promised all day finally started to roll in. But it didn’t seem to last too long so maybe it won’t be too bad when we start parking the early birds.

Of course it wouldn’t be one of Nick’s rallies without a little rain. Or a lot, either.

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Thought for the Day:

Seen on a T-shirt – Smokehouse Southern BBQ – So Authentic You’ll Want to Marry Your Sister.

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More tales from our visit to Newfoundland 3 years ago.

A Rough Night at See . . .

Originally posted on September 5, 2009

After finally falling asleep about 1 am, we woke about 7:30. It was a rough night. People coughing all night, people snoring, people talking in their sleep, etc.

About 8 am we headed down to Deck 5 for breakfast at the Cafeteria, stopping off to go outside on Deck 6, for a great view of the ocean.

Ferry at Sea

After breakfast, we went to one of the many lounges to spend the morning. Jan settled in to read and I found an outlet to plug in my laptop.

Our ferry, the “Joseph and Clara Smallwood” is 587 feet long and can hold 1200 passengers and 350 cars, RV’s, and semi’s. We’re 200 miles out in the North Atlantic, and I have both WiFi Internet and cellphone service. This ship is really something.

But being built back in the 1990′s, i.e. ‘pre-laptop’, there are not enough electrical outlets in the lounges for everyone.

They were also showing movies on big screen TV’s. We watched ‘Night at the Museum’, “Shrek II”, and others.

Around noon we headed back to the cafeteria for lunch of soup and sandwiches. And then after lunch we moved all our stuff down to Deck 5 so we would be closer to our truck on Deck 3 when the time came.

We docked about 2:30 pm and were called to our vehicles about 2:45. We were told not to start our vehicles until it came our time to move, and then we started up and moved out…not.

Actually, I turned the key and only got a ‘click, click, click’. Dead battery.

I still don’t know what the problem was. None of my lights were left on. Anyway, I wasn’t the only one. Two other vehicles needed a jump start, also.

Finally, we were off the ship and on our way.

We decided to head south down the peninsular to drive what is known as the Irish Loop, though we only did a half-loop since we wanted to get back to St John’s to get a hotel room before dark.

And now some pretty pictures of our drive.

Tors Cove

Irish Loop 1

Irish Loop 2

Irish Loop 3

Irish Loop 4

Irish Loop 5

And I’m glad we did come back a little early, because we had to try three hotels before we found a room.

While we were hunting hotels, we saw Montana’s Steakhouse and thought we’d give it a try later. And we did. And it was good.

Tomorrow…Tillingate!

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