It Was A Nice Day

We had Jack over for at the last couple of days to help in the garden. Here he has his own cutters and is helping Ruth to trim out this bush. He was super careful and did a good job. We were all impressed .

Later on he went out side with his home made rain coat on and picked strawberries for about one hour.

Dana and I went to the gym for the first time in a long time. He was acting like he does this sort of thing all the time but in reality I think he was glad to get back to the car and have a good sit.

We had Dana and Anita over for dinner last night and I made a tenderloin in a mushroom sauce and Ruth made Torta Rustica which was delicious. We need to eat like this this more often.

So today was a big day. I received my first old age cheque. YIPPEE . I made it.

Back to Business.......

So this has been my first week home from our month on the road. Lots to do and lots of things to take care of. I am glad this week is over. Next week will be a little calmer. Fathers day was great. Carrie , Brad and the kids came over for dinner. I love when my family gets together . I  just wish Sharon and her bunch lived here as well. Carrie gave me a great cup that had some wonderful pictures on it. I love it.

Jack thought he was being funny when he climbed into Ellie's carrier. I was so surprised that he could even fit in it because he has gotten so big. He is going to be 4 next month. We love this kid.

We did a Fathers Day hike down the greenway Sunday morning and saw a couple of young bucks on the path. It was interesting that they really didn't want to run from us. Where is my bow when I want it. This never happens in September.

I tuned a grand piano for a family this week that had this painted over their fireplace and I thought it was a nice wall. Don't know if I would do it in my home but it suited their house.

So I have a custom piano that is being painted  by a terrific artist and it has gone sideways. My customer and the artist have come to a disagreement of sorts and the commission looked like it was going to be going court. No one was happy so I have offered to take the piano back and pay the artist for his work. My customer is going to buy another piano from me which makes me happy. This is a long story which I won't put into print but it looks like I have made the customer happy with a replacement piano and Ruth and I now own a beautiful and original custom painted piano for just an extra 20 grand or so. I really didn't want to spend this money right now but I know someone out there will love it. The artist has the base coat on  the piano and it is stunning. It is a metal flake silver which simply Pops when put into the sunlight. The sun goes past the flakes and reflects back upwards in a sort of blue flash. 

The artist asked if I would like to see all of the parts in the base coat and of coarse I said yes. He took me to his friends shop where he had them stored for the time being . They look unbelievable. I can't wait to see the candy apple red and black artwork added to this piano. It will be spectacular .

Now the friend who this artist is storing his work with is a bit of a mover in Kelowna. Everyone I know who has associated with him says that he is a great guy and does a lot of good in this town. His garage is a dream come true. I have never been in a garage like this before. I think he said it was 6000 sq. feet. This convertible 57 chev was built for around $300,000. He didn't want to customize a rare convertible so he actually took a 57 hardtop and made it into a convertible. It is beautiful.

The dash is modified out of a car built in 2000.

This is his drag racer which he personally races. It does over 200 MPH in the 1/4 mile and looks absolutely perfect. It was only one of a few race cars he had in the shop. There were lots of cars here. I wish I had brought my camera instead of just my phone. I was breathless walking thru this garage. I have never been in a place like this before. It was very cool. 

So Saturday morning I has to laugh. I didn't know where Daisy went but I finally saw her sitting out by the pool. She had her sights set on a little chipmunk. They sat there staring at each other for over 45 minutes. It was fascinating to watch.

I loved seeing how they were both so intent. After about one hour I went and grabbed Daisy and gave the chipmunk a bit of a schoosh to send her safely on her way. She seemed happy for the safe passage off the pool wall .

We had a great ending to the week with a fantastic dinner at Randy's place. His wife Carol is on a 2 year contract in Yellowknife working as the architect building a hospital in that city. She was on her bi-monthly visit and brought down a wonderful Arctic Char for a BBQ. I seem to have developed an allergy to fish this last year and so Randy did me up a steak. Everyone loved the Char which they said was terrific. It was a great end to the week and it  finished up with the biggest lightning storm we have had for years. Quite a night.

Home

We made it. Carrie picked us up at the airport with her kids and a box of groceries that we would use for dinner and breakfast. We had been traveling for 21 hours. What a day. The garden looks great.

The dogs were happy to see us. No strange growths in the pool.

The house is still standing and everything is still alive in the yard.Neval did a great job keeping everything going. It was even clean inside.

The garden has gotten so much water this last week that it looks like a jungle.

As soon as we got home Ruth was into the garden taking inventory. The strawberry plants were thick with fruit. She had a huge basket full in just a couple of minutes. I had to laugh to myself. Ruth went into the garden and started to fool around with it even before going into the house when Carrie dropped us off. She sure does love to garden.

I Just Want To Leave

I can hardly believe that I was up at 3:00 AM. Newfie time or 10:30 PM Kelowna time to head to the airport and catch our flight home to Kelowna.

We got here and when we were supposed to load we were told that the plane was late in arriving because of the fog. About an hour later we were told there was no plane coming and we would have to rebook. Gotta love Air Canada.

We were booked to fly executive and had the pass to the executive lounge. That makes it just a little better when flying but when we had to rebook there was no space in executive and we got bumped .I went and got us put on standby for executive which is better than nothing. The good news is that we still have the pass for the lounge and will definitely use it while waiting to leave.

I also lost my passport . I don't know how because I am always so careful and never loose anything. As we sat in the executive lounge I looked up the airport security on the net and called them on my cel. They had my passport. My days looking better now.

What A Great Gift !!!!!!!!!!!!!

So my friend gave me this great hunting vest that is full of pockets. I liked it and have been wearing it but now I love it. I was checking the pockets today as I was packing it into my suitcase for the trip home when I stuck my hand in a pocket never used and his is what I found.

I think he likely left this money in the pocket for Ruth and I to use and enjoy on a nice dinner while on our trip.That will happen tonight . It's our last night on the rock.

Last Day With The Motorhome

I'm not going to miss this. They only have 2 electric outlets in this motorhome.The other plug is under the table and hard to get to. I don't think this unit is a high end unit. Our breakfast is built partly in the bathroom because of convenience. I'm glad that we are the first one's to use this unit. It's brand new and was just delivered a few days before we got to Newfoundland.

We wanted to see as much as possible today that is outside St Johns because the Pig goes back tomorrow morning. This was a little fishing village located about 20 miles out of S.J.  It is the only working village left on the coast. These fishers work very hard. I can't see myself doing work like this.

We headed out to the most easterly point on the North American continent. Cape Spear. It was very cold , windy and foggy. The men stationed here during World War II apparently hated it. I don't blame them at all.

This sign makes one want to stay on the path.

We were hoping to see whales today from this point but it was way too foggy.

There was a Battery strategically located on this point during the war to protect the entrance into St Johns Harbour.

The battery had about 4000 - 5000 Sq ft of area under the earth and was very creepy to walk into because there is no lighting.

I had to leave. It started to freak both of us out a little.My little flashlight on my cel just didn't throw enough light to make us comfortable.

The guns at this Battery were called Disappearing Guns because after being shot they could lower them down into a trench out of sight.

We headed up the trail towards the light house and I stopped to read this sign. I shouldn't have stopped because the fog horn went off just as I was standing there. Luckily I don't have to tune a piano tomorrow.

Ruth took this picture of me just a few seconds later as I headed up the stairs for safety. That sign was directly in front of the fog horn but we didn't realize it until it went off.

Once again we spent most of the day climbing hills.

 The light house keep was paid very well for what he did. In our present day money he would have been making equivalent to $90,000. The down side was that he was secluded for 12 months a year.

On our way back thru town I saw one of the police riding a horse down Water street. I was reading about these horses the other day and I learnt that they only have 4 of them in service. What I found really interesting is that this breed of horse gets up to 9 feet tall. I wish I had gotten a better picture but I came up on him very fast and I didn't want to get a ticket for taking pictures while driving. It really was a beautiful sight to see the horse almost prance as he walked.

So we finished off our day by taking a hike thru a beautiful botanical garden which is only 20 minutes away from where we are camping tonight.

There is a lake(they call it a pond )in the middle of the 110 acre garden which has everything from frogs to moose to ducks living here. If you look hard you can see the baby ducks that followed the mother duck up to where we were standing.

 

It took about 1.5 hours to walk along most of the trails. We both liked it very much.

We didn't see anyone on the trails this afternoon. I like the solitude.

The lake was beautiful with the fog rising up into the sky.

Walk about In St John's

We didn't have anything special planned for today. Apparently I was the trip advisor for St John's but I didn't realize it. Ruth always does such a great job in planning activities when we go away that I thought she was doing this one as well. In the back of my mind I can hear her telling me that this was my job but I don't think I really believed her. Anyways , we had a great day. We started off finding a parking spot near the waterfront for the pig. Then we headed towards the harbour. There are some amazing churches in St John's and as we were walking past this beautiful old Baptist church

we saw a little sign on the inside of an open side door saying that there was going to be an organ concert today from 1:15 to 1:45 on their old Cassevent Pipe organ.

We thought that might be worth taking in so we wandered around the neighbourhood until 1:00 and then went into the church. The concert was amazing and the church itself was even more amazing.

We have seen churches like this in New York but I never expected to see one like this in Canada.

After the concert we went up and talked to the organist for a while. He is from England and reminded me of an old english friend of mine named David Williams. David  passed about 25 years ago and I have been having nice thoughts of him tonight because of todays experiences.  The organist's wife is from Scotland and they were both very open and free with their stories.This church was started in the late 1400's and has been burnt down 6 times. The English would burn it down when the French occupied Newfoundland and the French would burn it down when the English occupied Newfoundland. It was fun to listen to them talk about the history of St John's. After we left the church we headed down to George street for a bite to eat. We have only eaten out twice since coming to Newfoundland and both times have been quite disappointing. Ruth and I love to cook so we are a little fussy with our food but there is no excuse for cold and greasy food. I hope to do a blog tomorrow on a fantastic meal as we are planning one dinner out in a nice restaurant  while here. After lunch we went to see the Newman Port Museum. I actually thought that it was like a wine tasting place but I was wrong. It was just a museum with a story. Newman was on his way back to England from Portugal with a ship full of wine when he was attacked by pirates. He outran them but ended up lost. He found safe harbour in St Johns for the winter before going back to England. When he got back home the wine had turned into what they said was a velvet tasting drink and they decided to call it port because it came from port ugal. They felt the change in the wine was because of the Newfoundland climate and humidity. Newman decided to build 2 vaults alongside the harbour to store his wine for 4-5 years before taking it on to England where it was very costly. This is how port came to be.  The vaults were very cool with low doorways.

The 2 young curators for this museum were quite nice. They spent quite a long time talking to us about the fishing and sealing business in Newfoundland. They also told us a lot about the history of the harbour and the ships that were tied up in port. Well worth the admission. We wandered back to the motorhome and hung out for about 30 minutes before heading out to what is called The Room. This is a museum located near the Hospital/University grounds. Every Wednesday it has free admission after 6:00 and we thought we should try to take advantage of that. It was a very good thing to go to. I love museums. This building also has a fantastic art gallery. I was worried that this was going to turn into a disappointing day but it turned out to be a great day . Funny how that happens. The architecture for this art gallery was breathtaking. I must admit though that I am getting tired of walking up so many stairs.

There is an observation deck on the top floor that lets a person see the harbour and Signal Hill. That was quite a hike we did on the first day here going from sea level to the top of the tower on Signal Hill.

It really is a beautiful harbour and a beautiful town but if you ever come for a visit be sure to bring a lot of money. You are going to need it.