Snowy Range Pass

Snowy Range Pass

Sunday, December 13, 2015

Port Aux Choix, Newfoundland

Once again, I find myself hopelessly behind on the blog. This is not due to lack of things I want to memorialize, but rather to a steady stream of road trips, the last of which was to San Antonio, Texas by air for Thanksgiving and our youngest daughters  promotion to Major in the Air Force.  To be honest, there is a bit of blog aversion thrown in for good measure.  It seems that procrastination breeds more of the same-who knew.

As our Canadian trip, now in the distant past, is in its final week or so, we headed from St Anthony to Port Aux Choix for an overnight stop in our push south.  The drive along the coast was scenic and we landed in this small village in a Lyons Club camping parking lot right on the Gulf of St Lawrence. This area has been inhabited for over 6000 years with the  first Europeans being French fishermen in the early 1700's.  We had a wonderful view.


 
Since we were just here for an overnight visit, we headed out to explore the area on arrival.  First was the Port Au Choix National Historic site and the Cape Spear  light house which was just next door to our campsite. Here you learn about the long history of the area and navigational important of the lighthouse on the Gulf in safety of navigation.






After checking out the visitor center and visiting the lighthouse site, we hiked some of the trails in the park to enjoy the view and vegetation.









Then we took a quick tour of the village.  It seems that in this part of the world, they just cannot help to be very photogenic. 








Back at the campground, we decided to try and start a camp/bond fire to await the sunset.  We, of course had plenty of drift wood but no accelerants to get a good fire going.  We were a sad little group trying to start the fire.  I have mentioned before about our experience with friendly locals everywhere we have been on this trip. As we were considering abandoning the fire idea, we saw a big four wheeler approaching us at full speed. He stopped and introduced himself.  Long story short, he got the fire going with some local fine reed material that he rounded up and spent about an hour telling us tales of his life and the history of the town. It was time very well spent.  Then he said he had to be off as he was going to be late for an important family dinner. By now, we had gathered a good group of our caravan members around the fire along with others who were also just spending the night here. About 20 minutes later, we hear the now familiar sound of the four wheeler.  He was back with another huge load of drift wood.  He said he did not want us to run short-and then he was gone again. 





7 comments:

Wanderin' said...

First of all, congratulations to your youngest! You have reason to be proud.

I knew you weren't in Newfoundland when I read your title. After all, it really is winter up there.

Erin said...

Yes, those small maritime villages always seem to be so photogenic. I like that photo of the lighthouse with the red chairs.

where's weaver said...

Beautiful photos of the water, RV and lighthouse. The beautiful setting.

That local was such a nice man. I bet he entertained you with some really cool stories. It seems it doesn't matter where we stop as RVers, the locals are always pretty dang nice.

Peter said...

Over the course of our travels I have found all coastal area to be very photogenic. It must have to do with all that water, don't you think?

Ruth said...

Congratulations one the promotion of your daughter to a Major you must be so proud of her.

Seeing your pictures and hearing the story of the local makes me miss Newfoundland. I have been twice and loved it both times but have only seen part of the western side as far up as Gros Mourne from Port au Basque and back. We really want to go in the motorhome and spend a couple of months there.

Nickie and Jim said...

Wonderful NFL photos. Thanks for taking us with you. When we visited Port au Choix, we encountered foggy, wet weather with high winds. You day looks much better!
http://intrepid-decrepit-travelers.blogspot.com/2010/07/port-au-choix-nfl-710-11.html

Paul and Marti Dahl said...

Seems like you're putting more miles on your part time RV than you did with your FT rig. (Not that there's anything wrong with that!)

Congrats to the new Major! It's wonderful to see your kids being so successful. :c)