Quebec, Labrador, Newfoundland, PEI trip highlights
I’m back in New England as of this evening, at a secure non-disclosed location safe from the security goons of the DNC. Here are some highlights and statistics from the little airplane excursions.
Approximate route: Up to Quebec City, northeast up the St. Lawrence River to the northern tip of Newfoundland, down the west coast of Newfoundland to Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia then over to Prince Edward Island before returning via Bangor, Maine. About 3000 miles traveled during 20 hours of flight time.
Most Interesting Place: L’Anse aux Meadows in St. Anthony’s, Newfoundland, the first European settlement in the Americas circa 1000 AD. The Vikings came, they saw, they loved it, but they left because they didn’t have sufficient military power to hold out against the local Indian tribes.
Best Aerial Scenery: Whales (100+) in the St. Lawrence, icebergs on the east coast of Newfoundland, the mountains of Gros Morne National Park from 1000-2000′ above the waves on the west coast of Newfoundland.
Favorite Modern Art Observed: International Garden Festival at the Grand Metis (Reford) gardens near Mont Joli, Quebec (6000′ runway) on the Gaspe Peninsula. The range of ideas in this Extreme Gardening event was inspiring and included an Asphalt Garden by Se Busca, a team from Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Favorite book read: Skinny Dip by Carl Hiaasen. A woman gets rich after her casino-owning parents are killed in a Gulfstream that crashes while transporting a performing bear. Her biologist husband subsequently tosses her off the back of a cruise ship in an attempted murder but she survives by clutching a floating bale of marijuana. Not exactly thought-provoking but fun.
Favorite newspaper article read: “Woman’s whale phobia justified… [headline] Behemoth Slaps Boater in Head with Tail [subhead] Labrador woman with a lifelong whale phobia was badly injured after an unidentified whale slapped her with its tail on the maiden voyage of her husband’s new boat.” (from the National Post, subscription only; also see this CBC story). Runner up is this Guardian story about a French book about being lazy at work, “an elegantly written call to arms to the neo-slaves of middle management and the damned of the service industry, condemned to dress up as clowns all week and waste their lives in pointless meetings.”
Favorite radio show heard: Senior citizen’s call-in hour on CBC where a woman requested Dory Previn’s song “Twenty Mile Zone”.
