Day 9 - Newfoundland

Ahhh...day 9. Today was a nice day outdoors. We started off by visiting Ferryland. Ferryland was settled in the 1600's. It is AMAZING what the archeologists have uncovered. They have basically found a whole city underneath the ground. They think 100-150 people lived in a 4 acre area in the 1600's. They had a 2 acre garden and fished. There is an area there called The Pool that creates a protective harbor for the boats. They chose the area b/c of this protection and built their town into the hillside. They have found tons of artifacts from that time period. The boys really enjoyed this tour and rank it very high on the things they have seen. One pic I am attaching even shows them looking into the very well they used in the 1600's for their reflection. There is 2 feet of water in the well today so they could actually see their reflection!!! I saw mine too! Really fascinating. The local fishermen were there going out on their small boats for the day. The town there now is still friendly and small. We even talked to the archeologists as they were digging. It was a really cool site and we really enjoyed it!

After Ferryland we visited Cape Spear. Cape Spear is the most easterly point in North America to England!! Can you believe that? We stood at the most easterly point and took our pics! We then toured the cliffs and the lighthouse that was built in the 1830's. This was a very isolated area. The children were of course homeschooled. Lighthouse keepers, according to our guide, were thought to be rather educated. We were impressed that when a ship approached, the lighthouse keeper would look to see what flag the ship was flying. The keeper would then raise the flag for a particular merchant. The lookout person on Signal Hill at Cabot Tower would see the flag raised by the keeper and raised the same one and fire a gun. The merchants in the harbor would look up after the gun fired and then they would see which merchant was getting a ship in. Isn't that great? I guess today it would be automatic or a cell phone away.

After Cape Spear we visted Dad's oldest sister that lived in the states 40+ years and moved back several yrs ago. She looked great and has a nice new place she calls home.

We also dropped by the horse races to watch our cousin qualify. We missed 2 of our cousins winning and placing on Sunday but it was good to see Aubrey ride Wednesday night. I think they boys thought that was cool too.

There had been some sort of wreck on the ONE road we needed to travel back to our cabins. We had to detour and the ONLY way took us like 25 miles out of our way. No kidding. We had to drive out to the big interstate to get back. It was VERY, VERY foggy and misting rain. In fact, the fog was so bad at one point around 9:30pm that I could barely drive. SOme of the rural roads in Newfoundland apparently are not marked with white and yellow lines. It had to be some of the thickest fog I have ever driven through. As we turned on our last road for our cabins, we saw a power truck. Uh-oh. Sure enough...we began to notice most homes had no lights on. Our cabin's power had been out for ~7 hours. It was freezing, dark and misting rain and we had no power. As we drove up the caretaker saw us and brought us some extra blankets and candles. However, she didn't drop off any matches!! We were so lucky b/c after getting into our dark cabins, the lights flickered several times and came on. Thank goodness. I was really power happy at that point.

The day was good. It went fast and we had a blast!! We saw some beautiful sights and got to visit with family.

Thanks for stopping by!