July 3-4, 2017 Trinity, NL to Twillingate, NS 264 miles

What a difference a day makes, and then again.  We loaded up The Mighty GS after breakfast and much coffee in Trinity and left for a B&B we had reserved for 2 nights near Twillingate. When we left Trinity it was in the mid 60s and warming up. By the time we picked up the Trans Canadian Highway it was nearly 80 degrees and sunny.  That is about a 25 degree difference from the previous day.  About 10 miles from the B&B the skies unloaded.  We had stopped and put on rain gear so we were prepared for the rain and did pretty well. Of course the rain stopped when we arrived at the B&B and we were sweating.

We met the nice couple who were renting the room and soon realized it wasn't going to work out.  Our room turned out to be their own bedroom upstairs past their family room and living room. It just felt weird; their things were still out in the bedroom and we were not comfortable so we told them. We used their phone to find a room at a small motel about 15 miles away.  We packed up and went to Muggee's Causeway Motel and Restaurant.  A decent place and beautiful view out the back of the room worked out well.  Yesterday we had lunch in the town of Gander.  About 38 planes landed in and around Gander during the 9-11 terrorist attacks.

Today, July 4th, we rode into Twillingate and went on a 2 hour iceberg and whale sightseeing boat tour. It was really fun.  We got close to many large icebergs but saw no whales.   If you look closely at a couple of the pictures you will see a 30-foot tour boat providing some scale to size the icebergs.  One of the pictures also shows a crazy guy on a paddle board in the middle of the bay, we were not sure where he came from.

At one of our meals Suzie was brave and ordered fried cod tongues, yes codfish are endowed with 4 tongues per fish and restaurants serve them proudly.  We were not fans and won't order them again.  They are fried and then a fat is poured over them making them very greasy and not a favorite of ours. 

I had a great chat with the boat captain.  He had recently sold the boat, tour company, a restaurant and eight  B&Bs to a local guy who had been a sea merchant. The tourist business has been doing really well lately with last year being the best ever.  This year started out slow due to the pack ice just moving out and opening up the bay just 2 weeks ago.  That's about a month later than usual for a 3 1/2 month season.  Real estate prices have almost tripled in the last 5 to 10 years due to outsiders coming in and buying up properties.  The boat captain said about 80% of their business comes from people from Ottawa. Our boat tour left at 10am and returned at noon.  Winds and waves had picked up so much and expected to get worse resulting in the tours being canceled for the rest of the day.  Right now at 5:30pm it is 47 degrees, windy and cloudy with spits of rain. The weather changes very quickly here.

Random thoughts about driving in NL:
- lots of construction
- traffic signs I have never seen before warning of upcoming potholes, moose crossings and drifting, the snow kind
- lots of serious potholes
- very few police but drivers following the speed limits
- most of the roads are 2 laned
- billboard advertising is at a minimum

Tomorrow we are driving about 350 miles to Port a Basque where we will stay the night and take the 6-hour ferry back to the mainland the following morning.  I hope it warms up.