St. John's Tour Day One

Ivy's nephew, Keith,took us around-that included Ivy and his wife Carol Ann-St. John's, very picturesque....and delightful! We headed first to famous Signal Hill,where Marconi received the first trans-Atlantic signal on December 12,1901. We stopped at Johnson GeoCentre,"Earth's Geological Showcase" which was very interesting with displays about oil and gas(HUGE oil drilling activity in Hibernia 90 miles off the coast of Newfoundland) as well as Titanic exhibit about the catastrophe 350 miles off NFLD coast. (There were at least nine warnings of icebergs, yet they still ran into one!)
We went to Cape Spear,the eastern most point, and again very SCENIC! We visited other little fishing villages such as Cape Maddox and Bay Bulls. I learned that they had voted in Newfoundland whether or not to become part of the US...it was a very close and heavily disputed vote, but obviously they stayed a part of Canada.
Off to more local touring and then to Heart's Delight tomorrow!

Arrival in St. John's, Newfoundland

FINALLY!!! My 6:30 flight from Boston was most uneventful; with not even two hours sleep, I slept easily on the plane and met Ivy at the busy Toronto airport.We boarde the fligh bound for NFLD, but were told maybe two hours into that we needed to stop inHalifax, as there was a computer problem tht needed to be fixed. Our interesting "seat mate" was a life-long citizen of Lima, Ohio, and a very nervous flyer, a serious "clutching the arms of the seat as we descended" type. We talked about this, as we landed, and the fact that her son was also on the plane added greatly to her stress. Clearly we landed with no problems; a special Air Cananda plane picked us up to take us to a gray and slightly overcast St. John's.
Ivy's nephew Keith met us, and we followed him to his lovely five year old home up on the hill to get an interesting view of all of the city.
His wife Carolyn had made a delicious dinner of cod and shrimp au gratin with mandarin orange salad and mixed rice. Dessert was a wonderful blueberry cobbler with biscuits that reminded me of shortcake. Carolyn has promised moose sausage for breakfast. (Shea sked how I felt about moose, and I first thought she meant mousse!) They caught up on the various folks that they know, as well as the things they had been doing, as Ivy had not seen them for three or four years.Keith hasw offered to give us a tour of the city, which will be very interesting, as I know zip about St.John's. I'm now going on next to no sleep, so I'm crashing. We're one and a half hours ahead of the east coast.

Now There Are Four Days.....

Bags are pretty much packed, but I still will need to throw in some things Monday night. The last minute details are being ticked off-mail held, the RIGHT shoes finally in hand or on foot, (for those of you who know what a return queen I am!), various medical issues addressed, etc. Actually the matter of the CORRECT shoes was really critical with all the walking I am planning on doing.
This morning my trainer suggested that Marathon Sports in Wellesley, as she found them to be very good. So this afternoon I did. The woman who fitted me, and I mean fitted me-like the "old" days-really paid attention; she looked at how I walked without shoes, she asked me questions about my health (re: knees, hips,etc.) So now I am wearing them at home and think they could very well be "keepers"! They have good support and are comfortable.
Several weeks ago Melissa said she wanted to get me a Kindle for my birthday and Mother's Day. Shortly thereafter we were at Target, and we saw that the price was reduced from $299 to $259. I really wasn't convinced that I wanted one, although I could understand how much space it would save. I really like "holding a book", as well as underlining it! So she bought it for me knowing that I might return it because I didn't like it. The clerk had told us they have very good return po,icy at that store. (I won't be returning things on my trip! Well, maybe not....) I started using it and really liked it. However, I learned that amazon.com had dropped the price to $189, and that was too big a drop for me NOT to return it. I went back to Target, and I told the woman at Customer Service, that I'd buy it for $189; there was nothing wrong with it. "Oh, no, we can't do that!" So I returned it(with my one downloaded book) and went to Electronics to see that Target was now selling Kindles for $189 also.
Ok...back to Customer Servce I went; "I want to buy that Kindle I just returned," I said. "Oh, no, we can't do that!" I asked to speak to the manager, who came out and said the same thing, "We can't sell it to you for that price; we have to sell it to you for $132!"
Thanks, Melissa!:))
Well, I had to digress to share that....
I'm not sure how much internet access I'll have in Newfoundland, so I don't know how often I'll be blogging. But you know that I'll fill you in on my trip "Down Home" when I had the next opportunity!!!