Snippets of my Whirlwind Summer

Hello my lovelies!  It's so nice to be back with you again.  I had an amazing summer!  What a fortunate woman I am.  With an empty house, I got to spend lots of time alone, eat when I felt like it, run around naked and make or break my own plans.  It was marvelous!

 

AND I spent just over 2 glorious weeks in Newfoundland -- travelling with my friend, Sharon, for the first week; then hanging out with family for the second.  Here are some of the highlights.

 

My wonderful parents.  I'm so lucky to still have them with me.  My Dad is loud and silly and learning to navigate Facebook!  (He needs something to complain about.)  My Mom's eyesight is quite bad, but she has great stamina and joy for life.  She got to bug me about my weight (as she encouraged me to have another brownie), and we played several games of Skip-Bo every night. 

 



Just a few members of my family:  my eldest, Cindy and her husband Jody on the left; my baby, Libby, on the far right; and my crazy sister, Linda, in the middle.
Cindy is pregnant with my 1st grandchild, due in January.  I'm so excited!  And I love scouring the Frenchies and Value Village aisles for baby clothes. 

 

 





The 1st stop for Sharon and me was Gros Morne National Park.  There's so much to see and do here; we did a lot of driving, walking, picture taking and saying "OMG!  Look at that!"  We managed to fit in one good hike to the lookoff outside Rocky Harbour.  Only 2.6 km return, but it's straight up -- and as you can see, a spectacular view from the top.  We even saw a young cow moose on our way down, not 100 feet from us!    

Next stop,Twillingate.  We began our hike at the Lighthouse in the far distance.  The trail system took us down through the middle-earth-type country you can see (flat, green sections), around rocks, over little brooks, down to the sea, past an old copper mine and up the stairs into Mordor.  What a trek!  A 9 km return hike ..... much deserving of the amazing dinner, 2 ice cold ones and NL Screech (rum) infused bananas flambé we finished our evening with.

The next day we took the ferry to Fogo Island.  We visited Auk Island winery (unlimited samples!), ate iceberg ice cream -- Yup, made with pure, million year old iceberg water -- and viewed a little of the new luxury Fogo Island Inn.  Their rooms start at $880 up..... so we stayed at more modest accomodations.



Our last stop was the Trinity area.  The left photo was taken on our Sheriwink Trail hike (5.6 km return) -- a wonderful trail system with mesh covered boardwalks for most of the walk and spectacular rock formations.  We went to a dinner theatre and walked historic Trinity, full of beautiful old fishing captains' houses.  We drove up to Bonnavista where we saw humpbacks.  Then to Elliston, the self-proclaimed root cellar capital of the world:  that's where we saw adorable little puffins and where we both coveted this deck chair.  It's also where we ate fries, dressing and gravy -- a coronary hardening NL specialty --  and the best bread pudding either of us have ever tasted.     

 

 

 

My students returned to me the first week of September; so it's back to our regular routine --- work, school, sleep, eat.  But it also means great little day trips for the 3 of us ..... like yesterday's Open Farm Day.  We visited 3 local farms, met cute, satiny-smooth chickens, said goodbye to the cows who will shortly meet their  demise, had a wagon ride through an apple orchard and ate a delicious Airstream Cafe dinner on a hill overlooking forest and farm land as the sun was beginning to set.  We were a happy, contented bunch. 

 

It's nice to be back to "normal".  Thanks for hanging on and waiting for me.