May 29, 2024  Starting Our 2024 RV Trip

The colors are bit dramatic outside, but we like it.

We're on the road again - in a brand new RV!  We sold our Tiffin because we missed having a dinette - even though those power recliners were comfy.  We bought another similar Mercedes diesel Class C from Thor called a Tiburon.  Although it is the same length, the slideout is not just the window portion as in our older ones, the whole side expands out giving us much more interior room.  Other than a really aggravating problem with our water pump, we are loving it!  

The dinette is large enough for Jack and me and Beau to sit (and lay) comfortably with a space for Luna, the vulture, to oversee all activities.

Johnathan getting ready to graduate

We started this trip driving up to Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania (near Lancaster) to watch our Grandson, Johnathan, graduate from college.  He is on the baseball team there and they were in post season playoffs that prevented them from participating in the full college graduation, so the senior baseball team members had their own private graduation!  It was wonderful - still had the professors and president of the college there  and they did a wonderful job even though there were only 10 graduates!  Speeches and commencement took about 45 minutes and afterwards, the college provided a nice reception for graduates, family and friends.  

We then made a "slight" detour to Indiana to visit the Thor factory service people to get our water pump issues resolved after having three different dealerships try to fix our intermittent problem.  The factory "fixed" it------- for a few days, and then our problem returned.  But, we were already on the road to Nova Scotia and had our ferry reservations to Newfoundland; so decided we would just have to make sure we had water hookups at all of our campsites and to carry on with our trip.  A LOT of driving and Beau and Luna had different reactions:

Copilot to Pilot:  UGH, are we there yet?

Supreme Commander to Pilot:  Aaahhhh

The night before the ferry we were lucky to get a site on the Bras d'or Lake, about 20 minutes from the ferry

The Bras d'or Lake is an inland sea popular with boaters during the season (mid June to September)

When we delayed our first reservations, we lost the pet-friendly cabin we booked, so Beau and Luna had to stay in the RV for the 7+ hour ferry ride from northern Nova Scotia to southwestern Newfoundland.  We had to be in line at 9:30 am for an 11:45 departure - this is a large ship with many tractor trailers and many more cars and it took an hour or more to load everything (unfortunately we were too busy getting ready for the sailing with the animals to get any photos of the ship, but you can google Marine Atlantic to see it).  On board we settled in very comfortable reclining seats for the journey and enjoyed a nice lunch from the cafe.  Although we had window seats, the fog that enveloped the ship for most of the cruise prevented us from seeing anything!  We arrived in Port aux Basques about 6:30pm and Beau was one happy dog to have us back.  We drove a half hour north to a very nice campground (with water hookup) where we had a quick dinner and early to bed.  We are 1 1/2 hours ahead here in Newfoundland.

Snow still lingers on the north sides of the mountains.

We had a nice site on the Humbar River in Southwestern Newfoundland.

We had been planning on staying two nights here just to recuperate from the long days of driving from Indiana to Nova Scotia, but there is no TV, phone or internet and Jack needs at least one of those.  

So, yesterday morning we left and drove north along the west coast to the only major town called Corner Brook where we got a site with full hookups and phone and internet.  It was one of those windy days that Newfoundland is famous for - gusts over 40 mph and it was no fun driving with the crosswinds.  

We have some weekly errands to tend to - laundry, grocery shopping, etc. and this town is perfect to catch up on those things and for me to get this blog up and running again.  The weather is gorgeous - about 70 degrees and sunny in the afternoon.  

We will spend two days here and then continue to head north with a few more stops along the way towards our ultimate goal - iceberg watching!