Sonya's Blog - Day 87 - The Ferry continued and The Bennett's

Sonya’s Blog - Day 87 - September 17th - The Ferry continued and The Bennett’s

Well I am still on the boat and I made it through the night without incident. We are due to be in Newfoundland at 10 AM, so I have 2 hours to go. The ocean is quite calm now so I braved going to the Cafe and having tea and a small breakfast. It went well, I just don’t like the walking part. I am fine as long as I am lying down or sitting, at least I can eat without feeling sick. That took up most of the time and we headed back to the cabin to pack up. We cannot all be in there at the same time packing up, so Blake and Isaac headed back first and then Natasha and I went in to pack up our stuff. I have a picture of our tiny little cabin here.

We got off the ferry quite quickly and then headed for St. John’s which is about an hour and a half away. We are staying with our friends Peter and Maureen Bennett and their daughter Madeleine. We got their house just after noon, but only Maureen was home as Peter was at work and Madeleine was at school. We had a big reunion with Maureen as we have not seen her since we visited them when they lived in Anchorage, Alaska in 2010. They have a beautiful home with lots of space for us to invade. We had a nice reunion with Gigi, their dog, as well. She was still a puppy when we saw her in Anchorage. She was very happy to get lots of attention and pets from us. Isaac took her out in the backyard and played with her for about 1/2 hour and they were instant buds. We visited and got caught up for most of the afternoon until Maddie got off of school. When she came home we headed downtown to have a look around, grab a coffee and meet up with Peter.

St. John’s has a nice downtown, not very big. Lots of windy streets and crazy turns. We parked on Duckworth Street and walked down to Water Street. We grabbed a coffee and Peter met up with us there. We then walked up and down the street and popped into various little shops along the way. The boys got bored with doing that and headed to the Yellow Belly Brewery for drinks, including Isaac. We visited a few more shops and then went over to the pub. We couldn’t get a table with the boys though because the pub was packed. Maureen wanted to get home and put on the salmon for supper so we left the boys to their devices and went on back to their house. We had to take two cars downtown because there were so many of us, so it’s not like we abandoned them there. Isaac felt very special being left at the pub with the big kids.

When we got back to the house Maureen started on supper. She had everything under control and didn’t need any help from me, but Gigi had not had her walk yet so Natasha and I volunteered to take her out. They have a pond that is just down the street that you can walk around so we got all bundled up and headed down there. There had been a lot of rain during the week and it was still very chilly and wet on the paths. Gigi was so excited to be on the walk and to show us the way. There were not very many people on the path so we had most of the walk to ourselves. We were quite cold when we got back, with the chill and the wet in the air it makes you cold quickly. Gigi had her good long walk and that was what mattered the most.

When we got back to the house the boys were back and supper was almost ready. We got all washed up and had some drinks then sat down to a delicious meal of Salmon, roasted potatoes, quinoa salad and broccoli salad. It was delicious!

After supper we visited for a bit and then decided to play a game of POW. POW is a game that was made up by friends of Peter and Maureen and is similar to Sorry. It is played with a regular deck of card, a homemade board and lightbright pegs are your men. We first met Peter and Maureen when we lived in Carlyle, Saskatchewan back in 1997. Peter and Blake both worked for Talisman at the Field Office there and since we were both new to town and similar ages we became fast friends and spent many nights having dinner and playing cards. They taught us how to play POW when we lived in Carlyle and it was a big rush for Peter to get his board made. He had grabbed a spare piece of wood and drilled the holes in it very quickly. Maureen was horrified because the holes were not evenly spaced as Peter was using a drill, not a drill press and the wood was not finished, etc. However, it worked well enough and they are still using the same board to this day! We reminisced about that and played POW. Only 4 people can play and you play in teams and we always play boys against girls. Maureen and I did not win the first game, won the second game and then got killed in the third game. It was very depressing. However we had lots of drinks and lots of laughs and that’s what it’s all about.

It was really late when we finally headed to bed and we wanted to be up quite early so that we could do some touring around. Maureen had to get up early with Madeleine so that she could take her to school, not leaving a lot of time for sleeping:)