05/12/04

Carol taught junior high for eight years.  You have to be a saint to teach junior high; you have to be an insane saint to like it. She enjoyed it. Carol was extensively involved with the local and provincial library boards for many years. She still does a lot of volunteer work and is involved with her church. Carol's a night person; she spends many late night hours on the computer, chatting with her friends from here and there.  I'm a morning person; I chat a little and play a LOT of bridge.  Carol loves figure skating; we both like music and photography; I play and sing a little traditional music.

Our Journal (some call it blogging these days)

Oct 1, 2003 - Today was probably our second last trip to Western Brook Pond for this year. We'll go again sometime around Nov 11th. We went today because it's the only nice day in the forecast for the next several days.  We left a little late, around 2:00.  We we got there, around 3:40. It was gorgeous.  The parking lot was full, so we hesitated a little because we knew we'd meet a LOT of people coming out from the boat tour.  We did.  We kept Piqa on leash for a while, and made her sit when ever people approached.  She did most of the time.  When we were clear of most of the people we let her go.  We took the "scenic" loop so we'd avoid any stragglers.  Piqa ran right past a moose that was on the edge of the trail; I mean, only about 10 feet from her;  I didn't notice the moose either until Carol called me.  I stopped; I called Piqa back; she came; we walked past the moose together.  So Piqa, the great hunter, walked past the moose THREE times, and didn't notice it first or last.  (Come on Pop!  I'm a scent hound, not a sight hound!)  Well, why didn't you smell the stupid thing, you were within 10 feet of it.  Puzzlement! We had lunch at the boat launch. Beautiful!  There were two moose, a bull and a cow, down the beach aways.  We walked down and got as close as we could.  Piqa didn't notice them either.  Then, on the way out, Piqa went foolish. She raced ahead and into the woods; I called her back; she came.  Then, when we reached the place where she'd run into the woods, I looked in and there was Mr. Moose. Big bull he was, with a full rack. I guess this one had actually walked on the trail and Piqa got the scent. She did the same thing last year when she got the scent of the caribou, but then the bogs were frozen and she ran out on the bog, casting back and forth trying to track them.  Her nose is always to the ground so she doesn't see a thing.  All told, we were gone about two and a half hours.  It was a lovely hike, a nice picnic.  Piqa got to run and swim. Not only is the hike into Western Brook Pond lovely exercise, but that place is inspiring.  I certainly hope all those CFas appreciate it. There are still lots of them around this time of year. (And there's been lots of paving done in the park. That's nice to see too!)

October 4, 2003

It was a beautiful day.  "It's a beautiful day," I said.  Three hours later we left for somewhere. "Where are we going." I said. "To the park." she said. "Stuckless Wigwam or Green Gardens?" Green Gardens it was.  We hadn't made this hike in at least 15 years.  That's scary when I think about it.  The last time Carol made the trip was with Liam and Neala.  We have pictures of that somewhere. The last time I made the trip was with Ben Spurrell and we did the entire loop, before it had been repaired. My memory told me that it would take us about 45 minutes to get into the coast, and about 1 hour to get back out. I was off by about 1/2 hour in each direction.  But it was as beautiful as I remember, even though we didn't spend any time walking along the coast at all.  We DID go down to the beach, have a picnic, and take some pictures.  We spent at least 1/2 hour on the beach. It was surprisingly warm for early October. I stripped down to a T shirt on the beach and that's walked back out with just the T-shirt and light jeans.  Carol was comfortable in her clam diggers, took her heavy shirt off while on the beach, but put it back on for the walk out.  The walk in is about 20 minutes up hill, with the remainder being mostly downhill. There's one more moderate uphill on the way in.  On the way out, of course, it's reversed, and I found it a hard haul. My heart was pounding in my ears. I stopped several times for a good spell.  I can't remember though whether I found it that hard on my last trip.  I knew it was a tough hike and I'm pleased that I'm still in good enough shape to actually make it. There are some who say that if you make the full loop it's as difficult as climbing the mountain, but I don't think so.  I don't think there's anything quite as difficult as going up that rock cut on Gros Morne. I don't think I have it in me to do that unless I spend at least a serious month trying to get in shape and lose about 30 pounds. On the very last little turn before we made the coast, Piqa scurried ahead and then came scurrying back. As I went around the turn I saw four sheep scrambling down the bank to the beach. A little further ahead was the remainder of the flock, about 10 more.  Piqa was quite perplexed.  She hadn't seen these creatures before.  She was a little apprehensive, but when they started to run away, she was all for the chase. Fortunately, by this time, we had her on the lead. She's very brave when she's on the lead.  We left the car at about 3:15.  We got back to the car about 6:45. Duckish. We might have gone into Woody Point to the Loft Restaurant but we didn't. We went straight to Deer Lake and got some chicken. We saw a moose between Deer Lake and Pasadena. Carol just dug up the old pictures of our last trip. We have pictures of Liam and Neala in the same places we took pictures of Piqa. It's very nostalgic.  Usually I don't have a good enough memory to be nostalgic.  Sigh!