20020617

June 17, 2002

Day 39

Start: Peyton’s Woods RV Park, Twillingate, NF
End: Funland Resort, Deer Lake, NF
Miles: 234

The high today was 51f and the low was 41 last night or early this morning. Positively balmy. It was cloudy and foggy, with intermittent rain. It was a good day to travel the road in a warm truck.

We left the campground after breakfast. Ross the owner was there, and wished us “all the best”, which is one of the more popular forms of good-bye. We got out of Twillingate slowly due to the roads. In most places they’re not too bad, but there are a couple of places that really jolted us. With a rear-kitchen trailer like ours, rough roads tend to scramble the cupboard contents. When the truck goes down, the kitchen goes up, and vice versa. If this happens quickly, things fly around in the cupboards. It’s always fun gently opening doors while wondering what’s going to fall on you.

We went through Lewisporte, where we would have met our Ontario friends today. Unfortunately, their ferry can’t run to Newfoundland due to ice in Labrador. I hope they don’t go nuts waiting in Goose Bay.

A bit after that, we reached the Trans-Canada Highway. From there on, it was easy going to Deer Lake. There were more RV’s on the road today than we’ve seen in the past. It looks as though the tourist season is starting. The tourist forecast is for more visitors this year from the US. 

Before we reached Deer Lake, we saw a dead baby moose lying in the opposite lane. It was about as large as a full-sized white-tailed deer. Later, Dolores spotted a grown moose on her side of the road.

We reached the campground, which is just now opening for the season. There is one other rig here, parked several spaces away. We went into Deer Lake for bananas and other perishables. We sat a bit on our return to the little house. Then we drove the 40 miles to Trout River and the Seaside Restaurant there. We had dinner there a couple of weeks ago and found it very good. 

It was good again. Dolores had mussels and halibut. I had a salad and cod. The portions were so large we couldn’t finish them. We came slowly back to the trailer, looking for moose along the road. We both saw one, and Dolores saw another at roadside that we passed so quickly I couldn’t turn my head fast enough. It was foggy, so I didn’t dare stop and back up to look.

We returned to the little house in the big empty campground. Dolores has two channels to switch between tonight – CBC and NTV (Newfoundland TV). “Anne of Green Gables” is playing on one channel, so she’s watching that.

Tomorrow we’ll go to the last Newfoundland campground – we intend to stay there two nights so we can look around for a full day.