Puzzles, Distractions, andandandand...Blitz!!!!

Happy Monday!  I will have you guys know that I started this blog entry last Wednesday but there are so many wonderful distractions here that it was a little difficult to finish.  But finally, at least for a spell, there is a quiet moment here, as everyone is off at lunch, or elsewhere.  The weather is grey and damp, as it has been pretty much every day since we've been back in Trinity East.  We have fully adjusted to being here again and have been having a blast.  It is still quite different than from when we were here before, and it does not diminish our time here in June in the slightest, but it has pretty much come into its own and it is different.  Which is what makes it great.

So, hmmm, what has gone down since our last report?  We said goodbye to Kent a couple weeks ago, on Wednesday, and then pretty much hung around the hostel the rest of that day.  The scout leader folks were still in full force so we of course made ourselves scarce after a while.  In fact I think that was the evening that I got kicked out of the kitchen.  See, there were ten of these folks, mostly couple I assume.  There was one lady who did all the cooking for the group.  She always wore an apron so I always referred to her as "Apron Lady".  Anyway, Apron Lady was in the kitchen working on the dinner for the rest of the group (which, by the way, never smelled that appetizing) and I went into the kitchen to get my food together to make my dinner and she asked me what I was doing and then reminded me that she had "nine hungry people to feed" and basically kicked me out of the kitchen.  I left, no big deal, just another thing to talk about behind their backs.  Eventually I was so starvin' that I just went in there and got in her way anyway.  I had some moose burgers to grill up and she was totally moose-blocking me.  That soon stopped being an issue.  As for the rest of the evening it was probably spent playing cribbage with Jess or just sitting around the living room and talking to people.  Sometimes it's the quiet nights that are the most blurry.

Thursday was a work day for us.  Krissy did cleaning and I drove up to Bonavista with a car full of empty bottles and a long shopping list for the hostel.  I managed to find everything that I needed which was great, and got to spend time driving and not working.  Of course, because it is Newfoundland - the the Bonavista Peninsula, in particular - I wound up spending about 40km (from English Harbour all the way to Bonavista) in the thickest fog.  It was like driving through really drab cotton candy.  The speed limit on the road is 80km but I was doing closer to 40.  When you can't see a damn thing and you always have the possibility of encountering a moose on the road (i didn't, but still) you must take those sort of white-knuckle precautions.

Came back to the hostel and just lazed it up.  Martha was keen to get people over to the little house to hang out, since it is in the midst of being transformed into a staff rec room as well as the place where Martha stays.  So we went over there and drank some beers and hung out and chatted.  It was far from a wild night but it was a lot of fun.  We were having all these deep conversations and there was a point when I was looking around the room and realizing that, aside from Krissy and I, everyone in that room had known everyone in that room for less than a week.  For a group of strangers to be able to talk so candidly on things like that is something that is very special about this traveling lifestyle.  In no other part of my life can this happen....I might be a friendly guy but I've never been so comfortable around new people.  That seems to be different now.  Of course that is because we are all travelers and, no matter what else we have going in life, that is a major thing to have in common at the same time.  I haven't found it difficult to talk to people while on this trip, especially in the hostels.  That is a pretty decent feat.

Friday was a day off but it was a bit of a gloomy day and we didn't really have much in us to do anything so I hung around the hostel.  Krissy and Erin had a booking with Sea Of Whales, for a boat tour, so they did that in the morning.  I met them afterwards at the Mercantile and we had a nice lunch outside on the deck.

We spent a good deal of the afternoon playing Dutch Blitz (the "vonderful goot fun" card game that i so dominated at when we were here in june) with Martha and Erin, who replaced us at the City Hostel but was here for a couple days of r&r.  Once again I emerged victorious.  I was unstoppable but I would soon meet my match.  Krissy went to hike the Skerwink trail and I went up the hill in back of the house, where we are camping, and foraged for berries.  See, this time of year Newfoundland is full of wild berries.  The hill where we are camping is filled with wild blueberries and raspberries.  One of my favorite past-times is wandering around and snacking along the way.  The berries that grow here might not be as big as the ones you buy in the store but they sure taste a hell of a lot better.  I hear tell that if you go way back into the woods (there is a trail that leads out the back of the property) you can find bakeapples.  Tomorrow I might make that happen.  Bakeapples, also known as cloudberries, are also really big in Newfoundland.  Bakeapples have a look and feel somewhere between a raspberry and a blackberry, but are sort of colored like a dark peach.  They are nice and tart and apparently a pain in the ass to collect, since they grow one-per-bush and only randomly.  I have yet to have a fresh bakeapple but I shall soon.  Another Newfoundland staple is the partridge berry, which is more commonly known as a lingonberry.  They grow in bogs all over the island but I haven't yet seen (or at least recognized) one.  There are many other berries growing right now but I am not sure what they are all called.

Anyway, so we lucked out in the evening and, as it was their last night of their jamboree thing, the scout jerkuses were out at a dinner all night.  And so we took advantage of the situation and had ourselves a FEAST.  All of us at the hostel (me, Krissy, Martha, Paul, and Stef - Jess left that morning to volunteer at the Folk Festival in St. John's) were here as were Mel & Melanie, Justin, the aforementioned Erin, and perhaps a couple more people.  Before that, as we knew it was going to rain, a bunch of us went up into the woods and built a fort out of tarps.  The idea was to hang out there and just appreciate the rain.  We never made it back to hang out and it is a good thing because we did a royally crappy job and the bottom tarp is totally wet.

Soon after we had supper, all seated around the big table, and we were passing all kinds of food.  There was cod, salmon, potatoes, and split pea soup that Krissy made.  We were all chatting and telling stories and drinking beers and had a hell of a time.  There were two guests, these elderly-but-very-hip ladies named Maggie and Pat, who hung out at the table after dinner and they had us in stitches.  Maggie is Australian and just plain ol' doesn't give a shit.  She tells it like it is and is hilarious.  They were only here for one night but they made it count.  Later on we went to the little house and played foosball.  I really suck at it but it was fun.  My last game was with Melanie and we actually came close to winning but were stopped just short.  Bummer.  Her birthday rolled in at midnight and I promised her a win.  That's okay.  Because she was turning 23, I gave her 23 high-fives, spread out through the course of her epic birthday party the next night...and two epic high-tens, to grow on.  So it was all good.

Melanie and Mel - two of my favorite people on the planet.

Since it was raining all night Krissy decided to sleep inside the house but I opted to brave it in the tent.  I am happy to report that the tent held up quite nicely.  It's always a little damp in there, on account of all the fog, but there was no water.  The sound of the rain on the tent was soothing.  It was necessary because I usually sleep with earbuds in, listening to music but I lost both of my cell phones the night before.  I looked everywhere for them, inside and outside the house, up on the hill in the pouring rain, in the tent, everywhere.  They were gone.  The only place they could have been was the yellow store on the corner, because I had been there earlier and always have to take them out of my pocket when I am fishing for change.  But they were closed because it was late.  So it was the pitter-patter of the rain that sent me to slumberland that night.

Woke up Saturday morning and watched with exhausted glee as the scout jerkuses packed their stuff up and left.  It took them damn near forever because they had like thirty coolers and other stuff.  Finally they got out of there and I drove up to the yellow store and, lo and behold, there were my phones.  My cranky mood was suddenly lifted.  It was a work day for us and, after cleaning the house and stuff, I wound up driving back to Bonavista with three garbage bags full of empty bottles from the previous two nights.  Yeah, there is a fair bit of drinking going on here, but it's all in fun.  It's a happy bunch here.  But I wound up getting like $13 back for all those empties so it worked out alright.  I took Paul with me and it was cool getting to know him a bit better.  He's a cool dude, the kind of guy that I can easily picture as the inspiration for a novel - kind of like how Neal Cassidy inspired the character of Dean Moriarty in On The Road.  He's in his mid-20s, has traveled the world, is currently on a motorcycle odyssey through Atlantic Canada and is midway through a month of volunteering at the Skerwink hostel.  He plays a mean guitar and, though it took a while to happen, we've had a couple of pretty mean jams.

It took me a long while to get the urge to play any music but I slowly started picking up the guitar and have since spent a bunch of time playing, amassing an audio sketchbook of riffs and song ideas that will surely form the basis of the next FDM album.  There is one song that I've written in full, which I did after Paul and I got back from Bonavista.  Just took the guitar to the top of the hill behind the house and wrote.  It's the first new song on this trip and hopefully there will be more complete ones to come.  I recorded a demo of it on my iPhone.  I have a recording app on there and perhaps before the next blog entry I can get a tracked version recorded to post onto the blog.  But we'll see.  The song is called "Another Line" and is kind of in line with the kind of stuff I was writing on the albums I did earlier this year.

As I mentioned before, Saturday was Melanie's birthday and so there was a party.  It was also a housewarming party for Justin so it was at his house.  We started with a dinner for just the inner circle (me, Krissy, Martha, Mel, Melanie, Kate (mel's sister), Dan (a pretty cool local dude that we know), and Justin's new girlfriend Lena, who we were meeting for the first time that night.  Justin unfortunately got called into work and didn't arrive until after we ate.  He quickly made up for lost time and had quite a blast.  After dinner, tons of local folks dropped in (some we'd met before, some were new) and there was a pretty bangin' party going on.

For Melanie's birthday, Krissy returned her onesie.  She walked all the way down to Justin's house while wearing it.  Because Krissy is totally awesome.

Oh yeah, we got a new volunteer on Saturday, Johanna.  She is from Germany and has been hitchhiking across Canada, volunteering at places along the way.  She is hilarious and a total blast to hang out with.  One of the many awesome people we have met here.  On a more unfortunate note, she has totally unseated me as the reigning conqueror of Dutch Blitz. She grew up with a version of that game and she plays it hard and very very fast.  Needless to say there is a bit of a war going on.  I still can hold my own from time to time but it's tough.  She usually wins.  That's okay.  It is fun.

We were off on Sunday but it was yet another gloomy day so we stuck around the hostel for a while.  In the afternoon we got a group and went to Champney's West, which is two towns over, for their annual festival.  Specifically we went to see the cardboard boat races.  Yep.  One of the highlights of the festival features folks paddling in boats they made out of cardboard, duct tape, and (a limited amount of) tuck tape.  There was a lot of imagination to these boats and they all looked awesome.  Also, quite surprisingly, they floated quite well.  What they had to do was paddle the boat from the shore to a buoy, about 40 meters out, and turn around and come back.  Most of the boats made it.  A couple sank right at the pier, one sank when the guy was almost all the way back.  I don't know who won but at the end they have this sort of free-for-all when everyone goes into the water and tries to sink everyone's boats.  It is a crazy sort of thing that is not out of character in Newfoundland.  Krissy and I have talked about coming back next summer and building a boat of our own.  Of course, being that we are not Newfoundlanders, the water would be a bit much to take.  Not sure if you guys realize it but this is not a warm place.  Where that is most obvious is in those feisty North Atlantic waters.  But the locals were jumping in and horsing around in the water like we were in a lake in Florida or something.

A crowd gathers at Champney's West

Fishing stages at Champney's West

These folks had the best seat.

Despite being totally loaded with people, the Mystery Machine made an alright run.

This boat made it a lot further than anyone expected but it still got flushed.

The aftermath.

Our boat would be awesome.

Afterwards we came back and made dinner and hung out at the hostel.  Since we finally had a dry evening we got a fire going and it was excellent.  We burned off a lot of that fence that we took down and had a good time just shooting the bull outside.  Two of the local dudes we know, Adam and Shawn, stopped by and they amused us with tales of growing up here and all the crazy shenanigans they'd get up to.  They are good dudes.  We've hung out a lot with them since and it is always good stupid fun.

On Monday we all changed our work schedule here back to the three-hours-every-day scheme and that is working out much better.  Less chance to get burned out.  But Krissy and I actually ran the hostel for the day as Martha took a much-needed day off.  It was a pretty simple day, and another rainy one, so we get done what needed to get done and hung out for most of the rest of the day.  Mel and Kate were out of town so Melanie came over to the hostel for dinner and brought ribs (because she is the best ever).  I pulled out some moose sausage and grilled that up as well and made some potatoes and we had ourselves another great feast.  Justin was here as was Melanie's sister Alicia and her two kids and all of us from the hostel.  Once again it was a great time.  I had intended on taking it easy that night but wound up staying up until about three in the morning, drinking beers and playing Dutch Blitz with Johanna, Paul, and these two German volunteers from the Two Whales cafe, Henning and Johannes.  That was a very fun and funny night.  I would pay for it the next day.

Usually I sleep like a baby up on the hill but I did not sleep well that night and I spent Tuesday very tired and in a cranky, cranky mood.  I got my work done in the morning and went for a walk with Krissy down to Job's Cove and that area.  She had to drag me out of here and I will admit that I was a bit cranky about it all.  Sorry about that.  As much as I love being surrounded by people while we are here, every now and then I start to crack and need some elbow room.  And surely it's amplified when I am exhausted.  That was definitely the day and after we got back I hopped in the car and went for a drive.  I stopped into Trinity and got some chocolate covered almonds from Aunt Sarah's and then drive down to New Bonaventure, which is a long ways down an often busted-up road.  I took a photo of the bar, which was a fixture in The Grand Seduction, and then headed back to the hostel.  That drive calmed me down a bit but I was still quite tired and had to take down a great deal of caffeine to get up to speed.

This bar played an important role in The Grand Seduction.  Obviously.

We had another feast on Tuesday night, this time Alicia made a big put of chili and Krissy made cupcakes.  It was pretty much the same cast of characters as the night before, except for Justin and Paul who weren't there, and with this girl named Lauren who is from Michigan but is working in Trinity as a kayak guide.  Her parents stayed here last week and they are all very nice people.  The food was delicious and later on we played an iPhone-based game called Heads Up which is a game where you pick a category and hold the phone on your forehead and everyone has to give you clues to guess what the word is on the screen.  Henning and Joahannes were here again and we were also playing with Martha and Johanna.  None of them are American so they did not know a lot of the celebrities and other things like that.  Also it is a lot like Taboo, except even easier, so it's pretty obvious that Krissy and I totally dominated that game.  I loved it so much that I wound up buying it and I can't wait to play it at CAMP LICHY.

Wednesday I woke up very early and got the bread out (i may have mentioned before that this hostel serves fresh-baked bread every morning) and started my work super early so to be done early as well.  I wound up working a lot more hours today than planned but that's okay because it was another rainy day and it was super quiet in the hostel.  After lunch Krissy and I took a drive. We wanted to hike a trail somewhere down the road but we went into English Harbour first and it was beautiful there.  Had fun relaxing on the edge of a cliff for a while.  We also drove down a long gravel road towards a place called Horse Chops but we didn't go all the way because you really need a 4x4 to get there.  It is supposedly one of the most beautiful spots in the area.  In fact that is where Mel and Melanie will be having their wedding in just a couple of weeks.  Needless to say we will be hitching a ride.

English Harbour

English Harbour

English Harbour

The view from English Harbour

Horse Chops (or somewhere close to it), taken from English Harbour

Another photo that deserves to be on the cover of the Newfoundland travel guide.

Fox Island, taken from English Harbour

Anyway, so we got done with that and headed down to do that trail that we wanted to check out but by the time we got there the fog had rolled in and it started raining so we gave it up and headed back to the hostel.  We had a reservation at the Bonavista Social Club, and a group of nine, and had a fantastic dinner.  Krissy got the cod and I got a pizza with pepperoni, chicken, and hot peppers.  It was pretty amazing.  We were there for a very long time and had a blast.  Drove back in the dark and through the fog and hung out at the little house and played foosball as well as a little Dutch Blitz.  The crowd dispersed early but I ended up staying up quite late, writing these very words (which you are now reading almost a week later).  I may pay for it tomorrow.

Thursday I woke up early, and very tired from staying up so late, and sorted out taking my car to Clarenville.  I didn't have to go until the afternoon so I did some work around here, cleaning the house as well as helping Paul build some stairs.  We mixed concrete and built them right, though I can only take credit for a little of the project.  It is far nicer to walk down them than to walk down the wobbly old stones that were there before.  Took my car to Clarenville and wound up having to replace two of the coils, to the tune of $400.  At least it wasn't more but it still sucked to have to part with that much cash while on holiday.  But it is what it is and at least my car is further away from crapping out.  So that's a plus.  Got home and was in a bit of a crabby, anti-social mood.  Everyone went out in the evening, for one reason or another, and I took advantage of the moment by playing guitar and singing my ass off in the mostly-empty house.  I was tired and it took a great deal of energy but I got it done and it was good.  Everyone came back and I hung for a bit but I was too tired to really be up for anything so I went up to the tent and slept for about nine hours.  And it was fantastic.

Friday I woke up and was totally energized.  Which was a good thing because we had a big day ahead.  We did what we needed to do for the hostel and hung around for most of the afternoon.  I believe that was the day that Krissy and Martha began their latest puzzle addiction.  Much of the down time in the days that followed were spent working on that puzzle.  Sometimes people would sub in and help but not me because I hate doing jigsaw puzzles.  So they were doing that and I sat around picking at the guitar for most of the day.  Friday was the start of Trinity Fest, which is the local three-day town fair.  There were a lot of events going on in the town such as workshops, competitions, games of chance, raffles, and other types of things, all throughout the weekend.  We didn't make it to any of it until Sunday except for the late-night events, at Rocky's (the only real bar in Trinity).  The party started at the hostel around 5pm or so and there were fajitas made (delicious) and lots of drinks going around.  It was pretty loud and crazy in here and there were games and guitars and all sorts of shenanigans.  There were at least 25-30 people and we eventually piled into cars and headed towards Trinity.  The first stop was at Dan's house, where we inadvertently crashed a high school party (except that we got there first).  That place was a lot of fun but was a total shitshow.  I raged harder than I had since college.  But the night was not yet over.  Eventually we all piled into sober cars and made our way to Rocky's for the Irish Descendants.  The place was totally packed and the band was kickin'.  There were many more drinks and lots of dancing.  Even by me.  That's right, the guy who doesn't dance spent two nights tearin' it up on the floor.  It's just the kind of thing you have to do when you are here and surrounded by all these awesome people.

Eventually it was time to leave and Shawn sorted out his dad's fishing boat and we all piled in, at least a dozen of us, and set aim for Trinity East.  I wish we had photos of that.  That was the most awesome ride home I've ever gotten.  We could never thank them enough.

Got back to the hostel and promptly passed out.  Slept pretty hard but I think it's just about a given to assume that there were a lot of very hungover people the next day.  Krissy and Martha ensconced themselves in puzzleland and I spent a good deal of time sleeping on the sofa.  I tried to break myself of that by driving all the empty bottles up to Bonavista, to the bottle depot.  It is a long drive anyway but it felt way longer that day.  And then when I got there, there was a paper sign in the window, saying they were closing at noon that day.  What a dagger.  So I turned around, with my car full of smelly bottles, and made my way back, stopping at Mary Brown's for some chicken along the way.

Got back and helped Paul with the stair project again for a bit and then took a good nap.  The hostel was a bit quiet for a while and so I decided to start a fire outside.  Before long there was a group of about twenty, all sitting around the fire, arguing stances in Would You Rather?  As I've said many times, I love how places like this can bring people together so quickly, that you can have both intelligent and silly conversations and act like we've known each other for years.  It's always a blast.  Due to the lofty heights of debauchery that we scaled the previous evening, it was a bit getting beers down, a more relaxed evening.  Well, for a while at least.  There was another crazy time going on down at Rocky's and we had a group pile into cars and head on over.  It was a much smaller group than the previous night - me, Johanna, Maurice, Paul (it was his birthday), Christine (one of the current guests), Henning & Johannes, Shawn, and Melanie. Ran into Adam and Dan there, and even one of our checked-out guests from the night before who did not get very far on her hangover and wound up staying somewhere else in the area for another night.  There was a DJ there and he was playing everything from clubby techno to traditional Newfoundland music, with a lot of classic rock and country in the mix.  It was insane.  I spent much of the evening drinking Screech (a famous local rum), socializing, and dancing.  I love being stupid with these good people.  The ride back was a bit of a debacle that involved Johanna and me in the back of Shawn's car with a woman who had just gotten sick.  The ride was fine but we were a bit unnerved.

Woke up Sunday and spent another day hanging around the hostel and playing games.  Krissy and Martha had finished their first puzzle and spent the day getting started on their second and I lounged around and played guitar for much of the day.  In the afternoon we got a group and went down to Trinity so that we could at least see a bit of the actual Fest.  The main reason for going down was to get moose burgers and that was a wise choice.  I had two and I could really go for another now.  Krissy won a tiny deck of cards while playing games of chance and then she and Martha decided to enter the log-sawing competition.  Yes.  There was one of those.  They were up second and, well, they did not finish last.  But they had fun and it sure was fun to watch.  Stopped at the mercantile for milkshakes and made our way back to the hostel.  Spent some time just hanging around and playing The Resistance (which is an awesome card game that we play at home).  I usually got accused of being the spy but I never am the spy.  Eventually people started flooding into the hostel and it was time, once again, to have us a time.  By around 8 or so we all piled into the back of a pickup truck, as well as other vehicles, and made our way down to that same schooner and we got taken out into the harbor to watch the Fest-closing fireworks.  There were oh so many people on that boat and it was a hell of a time.  The fireworks were excellent - honestly some of the best I've seen.  Went back to shore and dropped off most of the people but then they took the rest of us, the inner circle I guess, back out for a ride.  Being dark it was hard to tell exactly where we were some of the time but it was awesome.  We were out there for a while and it was one of the coolest thing that I've been a part of.

We got back to the hostel and played a few more hands of the Resistance - with Krissy's tiny new cards - until a guest came down and told us to be quiet.  That was the first time that had ever happened and I kinda felt like a bit of a jerk but whatever.  It's a hostel.

Today has been another quiet one which has been nice since it's given me a chance to get caught up on this as well as my monthly column for the Old Town Crier.  There is a game of Settlers of Catan going on in the other room right now, and I have to go to the grocery store.  That is pretty much the extent of what I am willing or able to do today.  After the last several days, it is well earned.  Tomorrow will be another wild time, I am sure.  A day of rest, I suppose, is necessary.

It's been very wet here so I haven't been all that inclined to do the kind of hiking we were doing when we were here in June.  Krissy, however, has hiked the Skerwink a few times and taken many other short hikes in the area.  The scenery usually stays the same, and there's nothing that wasn't photographed in June, but here is a sampling of some of what Krissy has come across in her walking travels:

We still don't know when we will be leaving here.  This place is getting increasingly difficult to leave.  We have to be here by the end of the month, for Mel & Melanie's wedding, and the gap between then and the ever-changing now keeps getting shorter and shorter.  Originally we were to leave last Friday, which would have given us about two weeks or so, but we had to stay for Trinity Fest....we simply couldn't miss that and all the craziness that went with it.  And that was a pretty wise decision.  So anyway, then we were going to leave today.  But....

We are holding a massive foosball / beer-pong / darts / Dutch Blitz tournament at the hostel, with a very large expected group of people.  That was to be Sunday.  So that would have been a great send-off for us.  Then we get a message that if the tournament were to be pushed back two days then Kent would be able to attend.  Seeing as Kent worked here longer than anyone this Summer, and because he is awesome, his presence is required and I am looking forward to seeing him one last time.  There will be some great powwows on the hill.

So that now means that we will be here at least until Wednesday.  Which is two days from now.  And I do not want to leave in two days.  I don't think either of us are ready to leave this place.  We have been having way too awesome a time.  Martha doesn't want us to leave either.  So don't be surprised if we end up staying through the wedding.  We'll see what happens.  We might try and nick off to Fogo for a day or two, sometime in the next week or so, but I think our plans to get to Gros Morne and, especially, Burgeo are pretty much dashed at this time.  Which is fine.  We are in such a good place that I would happily sacrifice some of our plans.  That's how the best travels work.

There is also the chance that Michael Jordan might be back in Trinity on the 20th.  If that really ends up being the case then our break is pretty much toast.  But we'll see.  After that there will probably be something else that we just can't miss.  Such is the nature of this place.  And it is our job to just roll with it and have the best time we can.

Until next time...