Signal Hill

Today we went to Signal Hill. The views were amazing!! Signal Hill was used by the military to protect St. John's harbor as well as a way to signal ships moving in and out of port during foggy conditions.

The view from Cabot Tower (click to see larger image).

The Narrows with Cabot Tower in the top left corner (click to see larger image).

32 pounder guns

The Queens battery was upgraded in the 1800's with six 32 pounder guns replacing a smaller 24 pounder armament. Each gun had a 7 man team who lived in the barracks on the hill.

It was quite windy on top of the Hill. Winds can reach up to 140 km/h and gust up to 200 km/h.

Theo at Cabot Tower with St John's in the background.

There are lots of trails at Signal Hill that we plan to try in the future.

T

Week One

Our stuff is not here yet but I know it will come eventually. I started work this week at the Dr. H. Bliss Murphy Cancer Center and I feel like I will fit right in. I have already met a few people from Winnipeg. Cass went to the University the other day to meet her prof and other faculty staff. She is looking forward to working with them when school starts.

Cass and I have gone out to one restaurant here that has good reviews, Magic Wok. They have really good chinese food and are MSG free. The next day leftovers were pretty much just as good as at the restaurant.

The other days of the week Cass and I have been making dinners. One day Cass decided to make pizza dough, which turned out to be really simple and delicious. Especially when topped with our veggie pickings of pesto sauce, olives, sun dried tomatoes, onions and mushrooms.
We used the leftover dough for breadsticks.

We had the breadsticks with our other homemade dish of green split pea soup garnished with lemon and paprika.

I'll make sure to take pictures when we eventually get up Signal Hill and Cape Spear to name a couple of places. We have many to visit and will try to do something touristy most weekends.

T

Our Apartment

Our place is pretty big. We have 3 bedrooms, 1 bathroom, large kitchen and living room. Beside the kitchen we have a small laundry room.

This is our entrance way.

Turning right we go into a hallway.

This hallway opens into our living room.

Beside our living room is the kitchen.

Our laundry is right beside the kitchen.

Off the hallway is a small bedroom that we will use for storage.

Straight ahead off of the entrance way is the bathroom.

The Guest Room/Office is beside the bathroom. We are currently sleeping in here.

Finally our bedroom with only our clothes on the floor.

All the bedrooms have closets which are nice. Cass and I have bought a couple of bookshelves and cubicle shelves for other storage. We don't have a lot to fill them with right now though. We hope our stuff comes soon.

T

Day Eight - St. John's

When we were directed onto the ferry we parked the car and took a few bags with us. My camera and computer mainly. We figured we could get food later.

It turned out you couldn't access the vehicle deck while the ferry was moving. An annoying policy. You can use the vehicle deck on the BC ferries during your trip. This meant that when we got up we had to buy breakfast.

Their cafeteria had decent prices we both got breakfast sandwiches and then went to the seating by the T.V. when we were done eating. They played a couple movies. The first of which was Swing Vote.

Cass filled out Sudoku puzzles most of the time.

They announced a whale sighting at the end of the movie so Cass and I both went outside.

I was being slow getting the telephoto lens on my camera so Cass left without me. We both saw the pod coming up for air at different times.

All my pictures pretty much look like this. You can see the black crescent of their backs.

Inflatable safety rafts. There are about 6 of these racks.

We got lunch and watched another movie after whale watching. We got to Argentia soon after around 4:30 pm.
A two and a half hour time difference from Winnipeg and a four and a half hour time difference from BC.

Argentia suffered during the depression but in the 40's the UK signed a 99 year property lease for around 57 battleships. America used this land that was in Argentia, Bermuda and other counties to build army bases to protect the Western hemisphere. This brought a community of workers and economy to Argentia.
I learned this at the visitor center where we saw a van with Manitoba License plates. There was also a vehicle from florida and one from the North West Territories. A lot of people seem to go to Newfoundland for a vacation.

The drive from Argentia to St. John's was pretty as Cass puts it. It took about an hour and a half and drove along the coast a lot of the time. Exceeding expectations the transcanada was a fast two lane highway most of the time.

When we got to St. John's we bought some groceries for dinner and met up with the landlord. We quickly unloaded everything from the car ate some lentils and watched a movie on our air mattress hoping that our stuff will get here soon. Possibly Aug. 16th or as late as Sep. 2nd.

T

Day Seven - Sydney

Waking up after a proper sleep in a hotel was nice. Especially since the drive to Sydney is only around 5-6 hours so we got to sleep in. We checked out around 10:30 and drove down the transcanada. We stopped at a park along the way for lunch.

The scenery hasn't changed that much across Canada. I'm sure people could argue otherwise. Visually though the trees were greener and denser and the roads were a lot more hilly in the maritimes.

At one port there was construction that slowed us down quite a lot and the line up behind us was huge.

Once we pulled into Sydney we had 5 hours to spend until we had to be in line for the 1 am ferry to Argentia. We decided to take the long 15 hour feery ride to get us closer to St. John's because neither of us wanted to drive 12 hours from Port Aux Basques which would have required only an 8 hour ferry ride.

This is a different port on the way to Sydney

The ferry port is in North Sydney so we drove to the main city and stopped in at a grill house for dinner. I had stir fry and Cass a chef salad. They were both pretty good. We decided to go to dairy queen for desert and get mini blizzards. We sat and planned out To Do lists and grocery lists for when we arrived in St. John's.

We headed back to the port to buy a few groceries for the trip. Got in 15 minutes before closing. Then drove to the ferry and waited in line for a couple hours.

Once we were on the ferry we walked around for a bit sat in some chairs but decided to head down to a room of bunk beds where we had reserved two for the trip. They provide pillows and blankets. There was only one other family in the bunks next to us. Their baby only cried for a little bit.
I had no trouble drifting off to sleep.

T

Day Six - Moncton

We enjoyed a delicious breakfast in Fredricton at Cora's. Fredricton is a really beautiful city.

This is City hall

We walked by the St. John River to get some fresh air and exercise for the drive to Moncton.

I made sure to make a reservation in Moncton so that we had a shower and bed waiting for us.

When we arrived to the city we had to burn a couple hours until we could check in so we explored the city a little. It definitely wasn't as charming as Fredricton but we did check out Magnetic Hill.

It cost 5 dollars. They let you drive your car to what looks like the bottom of a hill. What looks like the bottom is actually 10 ft higher then what looks like the middle point on the way down. So when you are at the 'bottom of the hill' and you put you car in neutral it will start to roll back to where you started. It's a tricky optical illusion.

After stopping for some food we got to the hotel and the room for us was ready early. Finally a shower and bed. We'll see how things go on our trip tomorrow to Nova Scotia.

T

Day Five - Quebec and onward

What a day this one was. Cass and I left my brothers place a little later than we wanted but were still on schedule for driving to Quebec for that evening. We had been trying to book a hotel but hadn't found any space. We figured we could just stop in to a Motel for the night off of the transcanada.

When we got to Quebec we thought it was a very nice city. To get to it we had to cross a large suspension bridge.

We drove around the city for a bit trying to find possible hotels or a place to park. Little did we know Cirque Du Soleil was in town as well as fire works and the New France festival. Hotels were packed and some roads were closed.

It was odd being in Quebec because we had to get Gas and food but everyone assumes you speak french. "Hello, Parles Vous Englais?" turned into a good way to start conversations.

It was pointless staying in the city so onward we went to see if a motel could be found closer to New Brunswick. Every motel from quebec to who knows where in New Brunswick was booked solid for Saturday night though. So after driving, staying awake off of caffeine and sugar we decided to pull off on to a truck stop and try to sleep, uncomfortably, in the car at 2:30 am. That lasted about 2 hours until I decided to drive out the rest of the way to Fredricton.

Day Four - Toronto

This morning after eating terrific blueberry pancakes that Alden made us. Cassandra and I went for a short run for 25 min in the ravine/park by my brothers apartment building. It was nice to get the muscles working after not running since the beaches half marathon.

After Alden made us fresh basil omelets before we went to explore downtown Toronto.
We took the subway and walked through Korea town, the kensington market and china town.

This car was filled with dirt and plants as a community art project and parked in Kensington market.

We saw the CN tower but didn't venture inside.

We ran into our friend Rebecca who had just arrived the night before. She moved to Toronto for school with her husband.

Alden bought me a sushi kit as a belated birthday gift so Cass and I can try to make veggie sushi in St. John's.

We then got 3 young coconuts cracked open to drink while we walked to Dundas square.

The Eatons Center in Dundas Square at young

When we got home we were tired, Alden made a tasty dinner (brined pork chops) and my cousin who lives in Toronto as well came over for dinner. Toronto is the fifth largest city in North America and it felt like it when we were walking around with people and shops everywhere.

T

Day Three - Trip to Toronto

So this is a day late. When Cass and I got to TO though we got hung up spending time with my brother.

We left Sault Sainte Marie withou much issue other than Susan our GPS trying to make us drive through the states to get to TO. We took pleasure in defying her orders and heading in the opposite direction to Sudbury. With some additional convincing by adding a via point she got the picture that we wanted to drive through Canada.

Driving around Lake Superior was pretty cool. The roads seemed really nice. Once we got past Barrie Ontario though the highway opened up and we were driving down a 4 lane highway. It was a little windy and nerve racking at first but thank goodness Susan was around, otherwise it would have been very difficult getting to my brothers place.

We had a great evening finished with a cosmopolitan.

T

Day Two - To Sault Sainte Marie

Today seemed like a longer drive even though it was an hour shorter or so. I (Theo) slept most of the way while Cass was driving. She usually just woke me to change the music. My cold is getting better though and my throat has stopped hurting.

We accidently ended up at a picnic table at a campsite for lunch in a provincial park. I was getting tired of trying to find rest stops and pulled into the first place I saw. It was nice, we didn't stay long. Just 10 - 15 min to eat some left over spaghetti.

After waiting ten minutes for construction we got to Sault Sainte Marie. A city that looks nicer than Thunder Bay I must say. We found a family restaurant for dinner and walked down the waterfront, a much better activity than watching TV in our hotel room all evening.

I wish I had taken my camera to the waterfront but I did have my phone so I took some pictures of the sunset.

T

Day One

Cass and I left around 7 am this morning for Thunderbay. I took the first driving shift. With my recent cold though we switched drivers in Kenora. We stopped for lunch in Dryden at Robins. I promptly fell asleep in the passenger seat when we left. I took the last driving shift to Thunderbay. The Ipod works great with the stereo and it has been great for not constantly switching CDs.

 I drove straight to the Prince Arthur Waterfront Hotel and found our room with the lakeside view.

We went to DeLuca's for a spaghetti supper and are set to leave tomorrow morning with left overs.

T