My eleventh birthday started at five thirty in the morning. I was so excited that I couldn’t sleep! We started my birthday with presents, because I was not able to wait any longer. I wasn’t surprised by the balls of yarn, because I had caught Ma carrying it in a few days before, but I was certainly surprised to get a boomerang and other great presents. After having donuts for breakfast, we headed to a sandy beach where I tried out my new boomerang. I wasn’t able to make it come back, but it did make a pretty big turn.

In the afternoon, we got our new tire put on the RV, and then we headed home for a delicious birthday dinner and a “surprise” cake. I had found Ma buying the cake when Pa had sent me to get fresh bread. Didn’t Pa know that you get cakes in the bakery section? Even if it wasn’t a surprise, it was still delicious. I think it was the best cake I ever had!

The day ended with a movie in the RV after Little Kid was asleep. Definitely got the maximum birthday hours!

Yep. We were driving down the highway when we heard a weird noise, and we pulled over to investigate. Pa checked the tires, and he discovered one of the four back tires was flat. Well, that is why it is nice to have a car with you. We drove in the Jetta to a campground, and started to ask the people there if there was a phone, but then we remembered that we were in Quebec: they didn’t speak word of English. Fortunately, there was one person who spoke English, and he got us a phone to call our roadside service. The roadside service sent a tow truck to us, but it was too short for the RV. The driver of the tow truck left, and said that he would come back with a bigger tow truck. But… he didn’t.

Not far from where the RV was parked was an overgrown pullout. So Pa and I got out the saw and started sawing down bushes. Pretty soon, we had a spot to park the RV, and we pulled right in. Ma and Pa called it a buggy hell, but I called it an awesome wilderness adventure. Okay, the bugs were a bit bad, but I still liked it.

Because our flat tire happened on a Saturday, we had to wait until Monday to look for a tire shop. The first place we went to said they could have the tire in five days, but we did not want to wait that long, so we moved on. The next tire shop didn’t have our tire and they sent us to another tire shop that didn’t have it either… after a long wild goose chase, we finally found a place that said they could have our tire the next day. They told us it was okay to drive very slowly on our remaining five good tires, so we drove the 37 miles into town with an average speed of 18 miles per hour. We spent the night at a Walmart, and the next day we got a new tire.

In the past four days we covered a lot of distance (@1600 km), enjoyed some beautiful scenery, and crossed through two time zones.

We began on the Labrador coast, which is beautiful, but, unfortunately, best appreciated from behind car windows, as the bugs are brutal. Every time we stepped outside, swarms of biting black flies would descend, leaving us with big itchy, bloody welts. And every time we opened the RV door, dozens would sneak inside.

We spent just one day along the coast, where we got to see one more iceberg ….

and picked up our free satellite phone. The Province provides the phones to travelers since the TransLabrador Highway goes thru pretty remote parts, with no services and no cell reception.

Our first driving day was a long one … we drove for nearly thirteen hours, with ten of those on unpaved roads. It was, as we used to say in Alaska, miles and miles of miles and miles.

The kids did an amazing job keeping themselves happy, while buckled up in the back of the RV and Andy and I took turns driving (and driving and driving ….). At nightfall we parked in a roadside pullout and settled in for the night.

Day two began with a paved road and a blissfully uneventful drive to Labrador City, where we returned the unused satellite phone. Shortly after leaving Lab City, and the end of the TransLabrador Highway …

we said “Bonjour” to Quebec and Route 389 … and “Au Revoir” to pavement. We slogged along a gravel, washboard road with an average speed of less than 20 mph.

We then found a nice roadside pullout and called it a day.

Our third day of driving started well. There were long sections which were paved and the gravel parts were not too bad.

All was going well …but then, fifty kilometers before reaching the St. Lawrence Seaway, and the terminus of Route 389 ……

We went to King’s Point
And Twillingate too
And wherever we went
There was plenty to do

There were cliffs so high
They scraped the clouds
And when fog came in
The horns were loud

There were ancient sea creatures
Embedded in rock
It was like a time machine
Turning back the clock

We explored the sod houses
Where the Vikings once slept
And memories of these places
Will always be kept

We played by the seashore
And explored the bays
Oh there were so many
Fantastic days

We saw clouds of capelin
Rolling in like the tide
And we met friendly people
Who took the fish to be dried

We saw adorable puffins
That were orange, black and white
And we did the puffin dance
Late into the night

There was a whale breaching
And flapping its fin
Maybe it was hunting
Juicy fish with its kin

There were towers of ice
Reaching for the sky
And little bergy bits
Drifted nearby

We will miss Newfoundland’s magic
Its wonders by the sea
But the seasons keep moving
And so must we

We spent our last night in Newfoundland at an oceanside campground named Oceanside Campground. I know, lamest name ever. But we really were right by the ocean. The beach was rock, with little cliffs and sea caves everywhere. When I was lying underneath one of the small overhangs, I noticed a fossil almost a foot long, and I showed Pa. Suddenly we started noticing fossils everywhere. There were thousands of them!

We celebrated our last night in Newfoundland by having a fire. I wanted to try starting the fire with no lighter or matches, only my flint that I that I had gotten in Vermont. After a lot of sparking I finally did it! I actually kind of panicked when the toilet paper lit, because I was so used to sparking endlessly. It was a very fun fire, even though I spent a lot of time gathering driftwood to keep the fire going. Our fire ended when it started raining and we all had to go inside. Oh, I hate rain!

The next day, we boarded the ferry going to Labrador…