Saturday, August 5

Today was Shirley’s second boat trip. A seven hour ride from North Sydney, Nova Scotia to Port aux Basques, Newfoundland. We had an hour and a half drive to the ferry terminal, where we dutifully got in line with a few dozen semis, young folks headed on backpacking trips, families on pleasure rides, old folks on birding expeditions, and who knows who else. For us, it was the start of three weeks on the island. I love Shirley, but she’s damn expensive to haul on such a craft! But hey, we’re only doing this once.

We’d booked a cabin that had a couple beds, a shower, tv, etc. It was plenty comfy but we spent most of our time in one of the seating areas. We also enjoyed a bad meal with a nice view:

We had several hours to kill and no WiFi, so it was a good time for tunes and podcasts for me, Kari listened to her latest book. One of my podcast’s today was a Bulwark conversation with Susan Glasser. Glasser is a writer for the New Yorker, and is married to Peter Baker, chief White House correspondent for the NYT. They are two of the most experienced and insightful commentators on todays political scene. They’ve both had incredible careers and are a must read for junkies like me.

The highlight of the day was where we bunked for the evening. We didn’t get off the boat until after seven and we didn’t have a reservation at the national park until tomorrow, so we just needed a spot to pull off. Newfoundland is perfect for that, it’s remote, unpopulated, with a long beautiful coastline to choose from. We found a spot with mountains on one side, the ocean on the other. Perfect. Except, it was windy. Not dangerously so, the gusts were only up to forty mph, but that’s plenty to get Shirley rockin, especially in such an open space. Kari was a tad nervous, so being the brutish, manly man that I am, I braved the wind and rain and pulled Shirley parallel to the wind. Of course I never told her I should have done that to begin with… It helped, but we were still a little unsteady. I slept like a log, Kari white-knuckled it until three or so.

We had arrived in Newfoundland. BTW, it’s pronounced just like we all typically say it, but “land” is pronounced “land”, not “lund”. Newfinland.