Aug 28, Alan remembers that he has a Blog

Just yesterday it occured to me that I had been back from vacation for about 10 days and had done nothing with the photos that V had downloaded from the camera. I had promised myself the next blog post would be about our 5 days on the west coast (of this island). It was a real treat for me as we were covering places that I had never been before.

It was mid-August and the weather on this Rock had finally warmed up a bit. As a result, both flora and fauna were well represented...




Pretty flowers near the bog



The mighty bull moose

The innocent calves

 

The elusive loon



The snaggle-toothed llama



Well, yeah. So maybe llamas aren't the norm here, but we got to visit that character and his buddy alpacas at the Alpacas of Newfoundland on the Port au Port Peninsula, west of Stephenville. The drive around that peninsula was very scenic and we got a feel for the French heritage of the area.

Part of the trip was taking in four plays over five nights. The highlight for me was 'God of Carnage' at the Stephenville Theatre Festival. It was done in a small square room with only 25 seats for the audience in each of the corners. We also saw an interesting play called 'Stones in His Pocket' at the Gros Morne Theatre Festival in Cow Head. The story is about two men working as extras in a Hollywood production being shot in a small, Irish village. The fascinating, and at times hilarious, thing about this is that all of the parts are played by only two men with a minimum of props about them. Well worth going to if it's playing near you.

A view from the hotel room in Cow Head

While in Gros Morne National Park, we took the boat tour in Western Brook Pond. This should be a stop for all who visit the park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It is a scenic 45 minute hike through woods and a bog to the marina and a two hour boat trip down the pond (that is about 16km long). The water is over 500 ft deep in places and the rock walls on either side tower above at about 2000 ft. The weather thankfully cooperated and we had a wonderful time (though they really pack folks (capacity of 165) into the two boats. Note that this glacially created fjord is now fresh water and closed off from the ocean and the first tour boat had to be brought in overland through the woods.

Below are a few photos from the boat tour. I'll let the scenery speak for itself...

The walk through the bog (no rubber boots required)

Exciting stuff, though the guy in the middle need a nap.



Small water falls




Pissing Mare Falls (seriously) is about 1140 ft.




Are we there yet? I REALLY need to go...



Got a Yarn in Ye?

Sadly, there is little to report on the writing front. At least not writing by me. My mum cooked Easter supper for us on Saturday and we returned home on Sunday. I spent a bit of time wandering through a junk yard, wrecked autos mostly, that friends of our owns 'round the bay. It was a bit of research to accompany a short story idea that's been in my head for a few weeks.

I think first, though, I will have to come up with a suitable yarn to submit to the lovely Laurita Miller over at Brain Droppings. She announced Saturday that all can now submit to her first "Brain Droppings Writers and Readers Contest". The gist of it is that she is looking for 500 word max. stories with an ocean-side theme. I'm putting aside the junk-yard thing to dwell on the sea-side thing for a spell. I have some notes in my 'idea file' that might be appropriate for this event. You can link to Laurita's blog here for all the information. I know there's a few of you who comment here regularly with no shortage of things to say.

500 words...phfft...not a problem for you! And you know how you are!

I'll attach a few photos of the Manhattan leg of our holiday. For those of you on Facebook and so bloody bored that you have nothing better to do than look at Al's holiday pics, I will work on putting more photos of New York and the cruise in general on my Facebook page. As I noted a couple of weeks ago, this three day part of the vacation was excellent and I would go back to New York in a heart beat. If only I had more time...and money.

This was the view from our hotel (13 floor, Red Roof Inn) looking down at cisterns.

Sean and Myself in front of the decommissioned USS Intrepid, now a floating museum.

A cool billboard.

Brooklyn Bridge, taken from the South Street Seaport.

Flat Iron Building from top of double decker bus (tour).

Sean hanging with the cops in Times Square.

Empire State Building

Headstone in St. Paul's churchyard. Notice skeleton head at top. Dated 1743.

Statue of Liberty as taken from the cruise ship.

Back to Normality?

Man, is normality even a word?

As some of you may have noticed the past few days, Alvin is back from vacation. I have only had time to read the blogs of others and comment on a few.

Many thanks for the comments on the last post. Some were very...interesting. I stayed away from the single malts, but did have a rum punch or two. Umm, I've never worn a kilt but my dad did at our wedding. That reminds me of a joke: How many birds can you get up a Scotsman's kilt?...it depends on the length of the branch...

We got home just before midnight last Friday night. I drove Sean to his usual Saturday morning swimming and my wife dove into the two week pile of dirty laundry that spilled from the three suitcases. Sean had a marksmanship practice with the cadets (with a pellet gun, not a rifle) and V and I drove to Gull Island to retrieve the greyhound. I was pleased to see that he remembered us and was no more neurotic than usual.

I have not been able to access the server at my employer's HQ in Ontario but can open my email through a Microsoft exchange server. They hope to have that sorted out by tomorrow. Being a dumb draftsman, I don't understand the technical aspects of my remote link to work and choose to leave that to the IT overlords. If I had my way I would still be drafting on a board with a pencil pinched between my fingers and graphite smeared across the flat part of my right hand where I absently drag it across my work. Sigh...the good old days...

Oh. Vacation. That went really well. It's amazing how fast, and slow, 15 days can pass by. I had hoped to post a blog a couple of days ago but our camera was just purchased before vacation and my wife still has to figure out how to download the 1000 or so photos on to the computer. Our old camera had a card reader, but the card in this camera doesn't seem to be compatible. I have also been thinking of an old co-worker from my first drafting job 22 years ago. I discovered while reading the obits in the London (Ont) Free Press a couple of days ago that he had died at the age of 51. I know, I should get a new hobby...

The first three days in Manhattan were great. The only downfall was that I put my back out on day 3 and it hurt for a week (and I'll head off the evil comments by saying it was hurt while bending over the bathroom sink to wash my face). We visited the USS Intrepid, now decommissioned and a floating museum. We also toured through the submarine USS Growler at the same site. The sailors apparently were underwater for 60-90 days at a time and the claustrophobic conditions on board really gives you an appreciation for what they endured. We got 2-day passes to jump on and off the double-decker buses that drive about the city and took tours of both upper and lower Manhattan. I must say, NY has a bit of a reputation for being unfriendly but we found the rumours to be totally unfounded. I would go back there anytime.

Our cruise was departing out of Bayonne, NJ on the Sunday afternoon and the hotel found us a private taxi to get us there at a price much better than the yellow cabs. The ship was enormous...the Explorer of the Seas (Royal Caribbean) is just over 1000 ft long and, at one time, was the largest passenger ship in the world.

While waiting in line to check-in, I noticed that we were surrounded by the elderly. Some with hair much greyer than mine. I had began to suspect that V and I were the youngest on the ship. However, we noticed a couple of families with you children and began to relax. After a couple of days at sea we began to shake off the hectic-ness of travelling and began to relax. Sadly, the elderly began to shed their clothes and dance about on deck. All that was missing was a brass pole. One old fellow had a gut hanging over his speedos, wore a captain's hat, and danced about the pool deck waving a beer about. I referred to him as 'Captain Morgan' for the rest of the trip. If I had a dollar for every electric scooter, oxygen tank and surgical scar we saw over the 12 days the trip would be paid off by now.

Our ports of call were: Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas (USVI); Phillipsburg, St. Maarten; Rosseau, Dominica; Bridgetown, Barbados; St. John's, Antigua; and San Juan, Puerto Rico. I have differing opinions about the ports and what we could do there and I'll leave my long-winded comments for another day...

As noted, the photos are still pending but I can include one that was taken in Antigua when we took the 'swim with the stingrays' day trip. They took photos of each of us posing while holding up a stingray. My wife's was the best photo. Mine wasn't so good as I wasn't really smiling and I couldn't get my stingray up at all...

I'm Outta Here.

Figured that I should post something substantial to keep you lot busy until I'm back-just in case you don't have a WIP. I'll be away from a computer longer than ever before (*hand trembles and left eye begins to twitch at the thought). Maybe I'll sneak off to an Internet Cafe and post to my own blog anonymously...see what people are saying about me behind my back. Probably dirty stuff (not pointing at anyone in particular).

Am getting a bit verklempt at the thought of missing my online friends. Feel free to discuss amongst yourselves. The subject is pictures from previous posts over the past 9 months. Those of you who have been with me since the beginning may remember some of them. Au Revoir.

Map of Newfoundland...the island I will be escaping for a while.

Pan of brains. I have sampled brains before in previous travels. Does not taste like chicken.

This ugly bugger looks a bit like someone I know.

Him too...

Ahh...the horror of it.

Three years playing violin in public school, and I could only hope to be half the musician of Will.

Just because...

Photo of a travelling companion from a previous trip.

Apologies to Mike Meyers...

School, Work and Vacation

Reader warning: this post is full of Al's personal crap and has little to do with writing...he is merely filling in time until the start of the Canada vs USA hockey game...may the force be with them! Umm...'them' being the ones with the maple leaf on the jersey.

I had fully intended on fleshing out a story idea when my son was swimming yesterday morning, but my sister came along to watch and we ended up chatting for an hour. Of course, any chance at procrastination is alright by me. Speaking of procrastination, my son is working on a school project that has to be finished prior to us leaving on holidays in 11 days.

It's one of those large scale--post on Bristol board--historical projects that is to reflect your local culture and heritage. His project is about the collapse of the northern cod fishery here in Newfoundland in 1992 and how the moratorium declared by the Canadian government that year affected the lives of over 22,ooo fishers and plant workers in more than 400 coastal communities. He has collected information from the Internet and library books but still awaits information from his uncle who works at the DFO (Department of Fisheries and Oceans) before he can finalize the information and paste it up on the board. He will also have to present this to the class a day or two before our holiday.

About the holiday...we will be off on a cruise through the southern Caribbean. At this point, you're all probably thinking "Wow! That Davidson dude must be loaded to go on a cruise." Not so. We have been saving for the proverbial 'trip of a lifetime' holiday for about 5 years (and are still going into debt on this one). It started out as going to Orlando to visit Mickey, but as the boy grew older he didn't seem interested. Besides, roller coasters make me Yak...as Sean became interested in sea cadets, and the idea of being in the navy (if he graduates high school), he suggested the idea of a cruise. We picked this particular one as it departs out of Bayonne, New Jersey and we can fly direct to Newark from here.

Due to the unpredictable nature of the weather both here and in New Jersey, we are flying out three days early and staying in Manhattan (cha-ching, that's the sound of the cost of this trip increasing alarmingly). If any of my faithful readers have ideas or hints on getting around downtown...I'm all ears! Have any of you been to a great attraction there, or perhaps a good (ie. not too expensive) restaurant? Al wants to know! A passing thought on this: If any of you are in the New York area the first week of March and care to meet with us, drop me an email and we can try to arrange a place/time to meet. I want to fit as much in as possible as I don't get off of this island very often!

At this point of my monologue you are probably saying. "Al's crazy and ranting, and what the hell's he going to do with his big, black dog!" Good question. As it turns out, a caravan of gypsies * have been camping in the nearby woods. Since the snow is low, I am allowing them to pitch tents in my back yard (but they must leave the dog's running track open so he can continue to sprint about the yard after taking a poo). That being said, they may camp in the yard and use the main floor washroom, and watch the family room TV only on Oscar night. And they can eat some of my lesser favourite food products from the freezer. But I have left explicit instructions for them to keep their grubby hands off the liquor cabinet. Do you think they will follow the house rules?

*Being Canadian, I am again compelled to apologise to anyone of the gypsy persuasion that I may have insulted during to posting of this blog. I speak my mind, and apologise a lot.