Thursday, July 18, 2013 - Day 36
I was up at 7:30 AM and went up to watch TV while waiting for the others to get up. Watched the Weather Channel and the Tour de France where the commentator said the riders would be climbing Alpe d'Huez twice? Heard Alex wake up and cry (no very loudly) to be fed. Amy got up and warmed up a bottle for him. I went down to basement where Bev was sleeping and woke her up at 8:20 AM. We packed our bags while Amy and Steph prepared breakfast. There were Belgian waffles with strawberries, blueberries, whipped cream and syrup, left over fried eggs and bologna, etc. I tried to check my Bell Sympatico e-mail using Amy's laptop but for some unexplainable reason Ask.com would not/could not find the login page? Same problem I had back at the motel in Deer Lake. Amy suggested I try using the Ipad but I just got the same runaround. Liam got upset when I tried to use "his Ipad". Amy had to give him a timeout. I started getting the bikes and bags ready for loading on truck. Bev came out to help. Stephanie wanted to put her dog's kennel in back of truck so I got it out of her trunk. I noticed that her right rear tire was quite low. I tried to pump it up using the bicycle pump I had used earlier to pump up our bicycle tires but couldn't get the nozzle on tire valve because of hubcap. Liam helped me look for a screwdriver to remove the hubcap with. I was unable to remove the hubcap due to bolts I think. Amy suggested using Emergency Tire Repair Kit in the back of the truck. Think is, it was buried under all our gear and bikes. Amy got a stepladder and tried to get it out but a large empty plastic water bottle was in the way. I got up on the ladder and managed to pull the bottle out of the way but couldn't reach the "kit". Amy handed me a hockey stick and with the help of the stick I was able to coax it out. Stephanie plugged the electric pump into her "cigarette lighter" and pumped up all her tires before setting off for ? While I was getting the dog kennel out of Stephanie's trunk Liam found a softball and a bat. He hauled it out and got me to play "baseball" with him. When he got tired of that he pulled out a kite and once I got it untangled for him he started running around with that in his rubber wellies. He was soon tired of that and wanted me to climb on the trampoline with him but I managed to convince him that it was still to wet from last night's rain. I was hoping that we would soon all be ready to leave because Liam was killing me and once we got to the TCH we planned to cycle around 80 kms to the Catamaran Park near Badger. I went in to check on Amy, Bev and Alex. Amy still needed to shower and then there was the kitchen to tidy up and the garbage to put out. Finally we were all ready to leave at 11:00 am. We drove into Baie Verte where Amy gassed up the truck at the local Ultramar. Bev went in to get some Gatorade for us. Liam asked for a treat but first, Amy insisted he eat a "Lunchable" as he hadn't eaten any of his breakfast. We drove to Aunt Teresa's and picked up her huge bright green suitcase. She would drive to Baie Verte junction with Stephanie and meet Amy there and then Amy would drive her to Deer Lake to catch her flight to Ottawa. Steph and kids and dog were returning home to Gander. But first we had to make 2 more stops (1) at the convenience store on the way out of town to get some Gummy Bears for Liam (2) and at the trailer at Flat Lake campground to pick up Alex's travel cot. Amy planned to stay over in Deer Lake before returning to Wild Cove. We finally arrive at the Baie Verte Junction at 12:50 PM. It started raining. Amy tried to convince us to stay another day rather than cycle in the rain but I just couldn't see how we would manage to get back to Wild Cove since she had to drive Auntie to Deer Lake. We thanked her for her wonderful hospitality, for driving us around Baie Verte, etc unloaded our bags and bikes and once we had everything loaded on and our rain covers on we set off for Badger. The rain stopped and the sun came out. I had to stop and take my jacket off. As soon as I had it off it started raining again. I put my jacket back on. About 10 kms further down the highway the sun came out and once again I had to stop to take my jacket off. You guessed it. As soon as I had my jacket off it started raining again. The third time I stopped I took my jacket off, which was thoroughly soaked by now, and put my arm sleeves on and my bright yellow vest. We managed to cycle the rest of the way to the Catamaran Park in sunshine and with a decent tail wind. We arrived at 5:30 PM and checked in at the main gate. A campsite for our tent cost $20 plus taxes. We hung up our wet gear in the pine trees to dry them off and set up our tent before walking over to the pool/cafe. When we got there it was 6:30 PM and the cafe was closed. We walked back to the store at the main gate and were told that the lady who runs the cafe closed up early as there had been no customers since lunch. We bought a couple cold drinks and returned to our tent to prepare a dinner of maple flavoured beans, KD and cocktail sausages. There was a gazebo not far from our campsite where we had been told we would get a decent Wi-Fi connection. I checked it out while Bev prepared dinner. I managed to get a half decent connection and checked my e-mail. Bev checked her Gmail. I did the washing up after dinner while Bev took our wet gear to the laundromat to dry them out. In spite of a miserable rainy day we managed to setup our tent in the sunshine and get all our gear dried out before settling down for the night at 9:30 PM. There were still plenty of kids running around in the park but they soon quieted down and except for the noise from the trucks passing by on the highway it was a peaceful evening until a trucker decided to lean on his air horn at 2 AM. If it's not train whistles it's truckers and their frigging horns....
Exploit's River Motel, Bishop's Falls, NL
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