We were like ladies of leisure today. We slept in and enjoyed the luxury of the beds at the Greenwood Hotel in Corner Brook. Yordie on the other hand decided to take advantage of the morning and went to the rental car agency to get her name on the contract and do some laundry. She felt like a cup of tea on her way home and went into the Best Coast Cafe on Broadway. When she entered she saw Stephen a.k.a. “Toast” who was a young man we partied with in Cow Head. Small world for sure! Turns out it was his first day in the job.

JoAnn spent the morning trying to get the insurance to pay for her flight home so she could have her surgery. Yordie ordered pizza and went and picked up Sarah and Emily at school for lunch break and then when the girls left, we piled into the car and decided to go to the Best Coast Cafe for lunch.

The food was incredible! Eggs Benedict was one order and the rest of us ordered the cod cakes with baked beans with tautons and molasses. Yummy!! Oh by the way, Jo-Ann only bumped into two people she knew.

Yordie took us to Crow Head to see the beautiful view of Corner Brook from the top of the hill. Dad, I now understand what you were speaking about! It is lovely. The water below, the steep hills above it. The fire hydrants, painted red all have metals posts sticking out the top of them with numbers. Apparently, they are that tall so the fire department can locate them in the snow banks. Ingenious!

It was time to go back to Deer Lake and drop off Jo-Ann at the airport. We are pleased to announce she will be reimbursed for the flight but now she has a 5 hour wait for her flight. We took some pictures and video of our good byes and headed off down the TCH (Route 1 – Trans Canada Highway) around 3:00 pm.

Yordie in the driver’s seat, Donna riding shotgun and MaryAnn in the back seat travelled and cut across the middle of the island. The scenery was beautiful but holy crap there are a lot of trees! I was on moose alert. I hooked up the wireless speaker and started playing our road trip music. Along the way Rod Stewart was playing in honour of our absent traveller. We had agreed we would not drive after dark due to the dangers of moose on the road. At around 6:00 pm we stopped in Bishop Falls for a break. We all said we were not hungry and we saw the menu was mostly fried. We were poo-pooing it. We used the facilities, grabbed a drink and then when the owner asked us if we wanted anything to eat, I ordered medium fries; the chain reaction began. Yordie ordered a BLT, MaryAnn ordered a BLT and Donna decided hell I will too! LOL these gals who were not hungry literally cleaned their plates. It was probably a good thing as we didn’t know where we would end up.

We looked at the map at the restaurant and were planning to drive to Birchy Bay (about 1 hour) further, but the sky got dark really fast. We decided to make a quick change and drive to Lewisporte just a short 30 minute drive. Yordie has family in Lewisporte and her grandfather had a home there which she showed us. We found a great little motel called Island Villas directly on the Notre Dame Bay and Lewisporte Harbour. The room is adorable with two queen poster beds, full kitchen, claw bath tub and decorated in charming Newfoundland tartan and little touches to make our stay comfortable. Most important, it had a corkscrew!

We toasted JoAnn and caught up on our emails, and Facebook postings while I updated the blog. We have just made a decision to bypass Fogo Island so we can spend more time in the tiny villages on our way back to St. John’s for Thursday.

Side note: We have been talking about the circles and loop for this entire trip and MaryAnn would ask us if this was the circle, and we would say no, not yet. Well MaryAnn tomorrow we are doing the circle like in the song I’se Da B’ye but will skip Fogo.

Twillingate for sure is on our list.  We are still in central but tomorrow we hit the east coast. Look out Richard Gillett (Cold Water Cowboys), I’ll be on the look out for your boat and you with any luck!

Reflecting on this day, we have met some lovely people from the lady who owned the restaurant to Jennifer, the proprietor of the motel. Reconnecting with Stephen and JoAnn meeting some of her friends demonstrates that this really is a small world. Driving through the hills and seeing the amazing vistas I felt so small and then realized that this land we live in is so big!

Sending love to JoJo!