Gros Morne~ Day 7

      We are headed home today.  Going to church in Deer Lake (about an hour from Woody Point), then on the road back home.  We will miss this very simple place.  It has been a wonderful escape from our normal life.  I feel like we have gone to a magical place where people do not lock their doors, you need to get in your boat and go fishing for your dinner, at least the locals do, but we foreigners stop at the local grocer and bought chicken.  The people that live there permanently know each other and on Sat evening get together at the Legion Hall.  We could let the kids walk down to the water to play and look for sea life.  Once the kids went to bed Paul and I would sit on the front porch with a drink and talk while enjoying the beauty of God’s creation.  It was so quiet and peaceful.  There would be an occasional dog bark, usually ours, but for the most part you never heard any noise.  It was a great vacation.

 

 

Gros Morne~ Day 6

      The weather had been saying it was going to rain all week, well today it finally did.  We spent most of the day in the house playing card games and just playing.  At around 2:00 the kids wanted to go look for souvenirs.  After we had found a souvenir for each of the kids we came home then walked into town for some ice cream.  The rains had pretty much stopped, still an occasional mist.  After dinner the kids went back to the beach where they played in the water and after Nathan begging the girls to jump off of the drainage pipe into the stream, Kayla found the courage and did it.  They all eventually did it, but it took that first brave person for everyone to feel it was OK. 

 

Gros Morne~ Day 5

Time for a real hike!  We hiked up over 1,000 vertical feet (there were some pretty steep sections) and we were huffing and puffing some of the way, but the kids did really well and did not complain.  Well, except when Reagan would let us know ‘I am tired”, every 50 feet on the way up.  It was a workout, but once we got to the top it was a beautiful panoramic view of Bonne Bay and The Tablelands and the wild blueberries were ready to be picked so we had a snack of granola bars and wild blueberries.  Coming down was a lot easier and we saw some moose tracks, no moose, just tracks.  After lunch we asked the kids what they wanted to do since they were so good about going on the hike with us and they wanted to go back to the “sea glass beach”.  We played there for a few hours then went home for dinner after which the kids went down to the beach by the house to play in the water.  The girls enjoy playing in the water while Nathan scouts the water for crabs, which he usually finds a few, tonight he found a lobster as well.  It was a little one so we released it back into the water.

Gros Morne~ Day 4

We had read about Lobster Cove lighthouse, where at low tide there are some tidal pools you can access and look for sea life in.  That was today’s mission.  We got there at low tide, about 9:00 am, and the kids had a great time jumping from tide pool to tide pool and collecting starfish, crabs, and sea urchins.  There were also sea snails, millions of them, and barnacles.  The kids were on the hunt for starfish and crabs mainly.  They would go find them and bring them back to a tide pool and make a colony of starfish.  At 11:00 there was a guide that spoke of the history of the lighthouse and the area, which was interesting.  After the tour, the kids wanted to go back to the tide pools where they continued to hunt.  On the walk down to the tide pools the kids saw a “wild” mouse, which they were excited about.  At the tide pools Nathan would find the crabs while Kayla and Emily babysat them, they ended up with 15 total.   Madeline and Reagan and Luke had fun on the shoreline playing with the rocks and building inuksuk’s.  It was time for lunch so we headed into Rocky Harbor for lunch.  Then it was off to the Wildlife Museum where the kids did a scavenger hunt.  The displays were very well put together and well maintained.  At the museum they had carvings out of moose antlers and seal skins.  The kids had fun checking it all out. 

        I forgot to mention on the drive to the lighthouse we saw a moose on the side of the road, just standing there watching the cars drive by.  No picture, we had a car behind us, otherwise we would have stopped to snap a shot of it.