General – Page 3 – The Destinators

Gander

Well rested and with the truck’s vents blowing cool and conditioned air, we moved an hour on up the road to Gander. Located on a ‘Great Circle’ route between North America and Europe, Gander was built to be an airport town for refueling trans-Atlantic flights, and for a time was the largest and busiest airport in the world. It has lately become well known for its townwide hospitality when planes were unexpectedly grounded there on September 11, 2001. On that day, North American airspace was closed and all planes were required to land. Within a few hours, 38 planes landed in this town of (then) 9,300, unloading 7,000 unexpected guest from 95 different countries for an unknown duration. It ended up being 5 days. Among locals, the stayover is now known as ‘9/12,’ and the guests are called ‘Come From Away’s (CFAs). We were interested to see this historic town. Maybe we’d have a chance to talk to some of the kind people and thank them for their generosity.

Grand Falls-Windsor and Bishop’s Falls

We headed inland from the west coast, driving along big rolling hills, almost always with a lake or river beside the road. The sign said ‘Welcome to Grand Falls-Windsor – Perfectly Centered!’ That’s a fact. GFW is in the center of Newfoundland, and it’s the largest town in the interior. It’s also away from the natural breezes that keep things cool along the coast – a feature which, during the rare heat wave that’s been afflicting Newfoundland, made for a hot town!

Blanc-Sablon, QC

We are not keen on reservations, as a general rule. Reservations force us to arrive somewhere at a certain day or time – what if we find something interesting along the way there!?! So, even though we didn’t make reservations on the ferry making the crossing from Blanc-Sablon, QC (2 km/1.2 miles from the Labrador border) to St Barbe, Newfoundland, finding that there was no room for another RV on the day we arrived planning to cross was not a cause for distress. To the contrary, yay! We have an extra day to explore this tiny corner of Quebec.

Heading north! (again)

We’ve been wanting to explore the Maritime provinces, Canada’s east coast, for a while. As we started checking out maps, two fun thoughts popped into our heads…

What on Earth happened?

It used to be that in the spring we’d restart our blog with a recap of the previous year’s trip. That tradition was suspended in 2020 because of COVID and has remained so until now for that and a couple of other, unrelated reasons.

Home

We’re home after a quick (hey, it’s all relative…) month-long trip to visit my mom in Florida. Although it’s not our preferred pace, we took just 3 hops to get back to Vermont from there. The timing for the whole trip allowed us to see friends on the way down, visit 2 National Parks we’d never seen, and spend a week with my mom. However, the timing of events and appointments between Florida and back home required a northbound skedaddle. Fortunately, on a previous trip we’d scouted out the best/shortest/most direct route should we ever need to get to my mom’s in a hurry, and we used that route in reverse to get back north.

On the road again, again

Time to visit my mom in Florida! Driving to Florida in the RV, as opposed to flying there in an airplane, gives us opportunities to spend more time with my mom, bring instruments along for jams, and see friends along the way, so we’re out again for about a month. Plans include exploring a couple of east coast national parks we’ve not yet visited (aka going places that we’ve never been) and, yes, making music with our friends.

Hey mom, see you soon!

Happy homeowner projects

It’s been 20 years since we bought our home and did a thorough round of remodeling and renovation projects. That means… it’s time to do them again!

Brampton, ON

Sue, Iris, Doug

Our last stop before we arrive in Toronto was Brampton, ON where we enjoyed getting together with our musician friend, Iris. Of course, it was an opportunity to jam!

Manitoulin Island

Lake Manitou from the Cup & Saucer cliffs

Look at any map of Ontario, and there’s a curious island at the north end of Lake Huron. It’s Manitoulin Island and we’d never heard of it. And it has a dotted line attached to its southern shore. Ferry! This needed some research.

It turns out Manitoulin Island is the largest island in a freshwater lake in the world. Interestingly, Manitou Lake (in the photo above) is the largest freshwater lake on an island in the world. The population (13,000) is a healthy mix of people of indigenous and European descent. Politically and culturally, the island is in North Ontario. Geologically – the Niagara Escarpment runs through it – it’s an extension of South Ontario. There are only 2 ways on or off the island – a swing bridge from Little Current to the mainland, and a ferry to and from the Bruce Peninsula that runs only in the summer. It sounded to us like a unique place worthy of exploration…