Well… back from vacation, and what a vacation.

As usual, we drove back to Newfoundland for our vacation. What was unusual was that we decided to tow our trailer and bring our four-wheeler along. We knew it would cost a little more in gas, we knew it was going to cost more on the ferry from North Sydney to Port aux Basques, and we knew it was risky to drag a trailer for such a long distance, but we tackled it anyway.

Just as we were about to hit the road, I realized our new trailer did not have a safety inspection completed. It was licensed and insured, but the necessary safety inspection sticker was not in place. I rushed the trailer over to a local business to get inspected, and luckily they were able to inspect it without forcing me to remove all the cargo. Loading the four-wheeler and other stuff, along with tarps and bungee cords stretched all over took me about two hours. The trailer got inspected and we were off.

We arrived in North Sydney a little later than we wanted to… around 9:30 pm. When we got there, we discovered that our boat, which was scheduled to leave port at 1:00 am, was going to be slightly delayed. It didn’t leave until around 3:30 am.

Leaving North Sydney late meant arriving in Port aux Basques late. We had hoped to make up the time, but we ran in to some issues with the trailer. (Side note… we had a 4×8 stake-side trailer that we sold so we could purchase a galvanized 5×8 trailer from Costco. The stake side trailer only had 9 inch wheels and the new one had 13 inch… more suitable for distance travel.) By the time we got to Marble Mountain, about two hours into a 9 hour drive on the Newfoundland side, I noticed that one of the tires on the trailer was low. I pulled it over the an air pump to fill it up and noticed that the problem was with the air filler stem. The metal was separated from the rubber. A quick check of the other tire revealed to me that it was also running a little low. I had one spare tire, but not two. So, Deer Lake was only 60 kms away… we hoped we could make it there to find a garage to help us with our issue. A little searching and we found a place to help us. They squeezed us in right away. Once they replace both (yes BOTH) valve stems, we were off again.

Luckily, there was no more excitement. No mechanical issues, no moose, no major construction delays. We arrived in Witless Bay around 7 pm, only about 3 hours later than expected.

RDF. Rain, drizzle and fog. That summarizes the weather for practically the whole time we were in Newfoundland. But that didn’t stop us from having a good time. In two weeks, we put 600 kms on the four wheeler (pretty good considering that much of those kms were at a crawling pace over very rough terrain). I managed to get it stuck several times, once REALLY good. My son had gotten stuck and needed to be winched out. When I followed in his path, I decided it would be best not to drive in his tracks. So, I figured I’d straddle them… my right wheels between his tracks and my left wheels to the left of his tracks. The right wheels were fine. The left wheels went straight into a deep puddle of water. It turns out that moss that is growing on top of water looks exactly like moss growing on top of the ground! I immediately jumped onto the right running board and leaned hard, holding the handle bars. I had to. Otherwise the bike was going to roll right over into the water… that would be disastrous. It took three bikes, pulling with engines and winches about 20 minutes to get me out. The new bike was officially christened.

Besides that, I found time to shingle a roof, install crown moulding, build a deck, fall off a set of scaffolding and generally kick the shit out of myself. Yes… I said fall off a set of scaffolding. It was a home-made set, screwed together, and attached to the side of the house. I was up about 6 feet and the scaffolding fell apart, sending me falling into a pile on the ground. I buggered up my ankle, both heels, my right elbow and my shoulder. The funny thing, is the sciatic nerve problem that has been nagging at me since April 2007 suddenly went away! I can hardly walk, but my back doesn’t hurt.

The whole trip, driving from Moncton to St. John’s and back and all around while we were there. 4500 kilometers of highway driving and didn’t see one moose. Ok, I saw one moose, but it was a baby and about 50 feet off to the side of the road. But driving up and down the dirt road of Gully Pond in Witless Bay, we saw 5 moose. I’d rather see them there than on the highway anyway.

And now… we’re back. It’s Saturday night and we have to go back to work on Monday. Seems like forever since vacation started but it also seems to have gone by in a flash. So, back to reality and looking forward to the next time we set foot back on the rock.

I’ll end my rambling now… and leave you with this: one of the coolest license plates I’ve seen.