SATURDAY 13 August – Gander, Newfoundland, Canada

I was up at 6 AM today and Linda was up shortly thereafter.  We had both gone to bed early enough last night that we were as rested as we were going to be.  I have to be really tired to spend more than 7 hours in bed.  We are both feeling better, day by day, but are not yet fully recovered.  We still have annoying symptoms and tire more quickly than we would like.

The reason I was up early was to try and use the RV park Wi-Fi to update a long and growing list of apps on my iPad and, secondarily, on my Pixel 6 Pro smartphone.  Linda likes to play word games in the morning (such as Wordle and Words With Friends) that require a (functioning) Internet connection.  I’m happy to say that we were (finally) able to get usable Internet via the Park Wi-Fi and get things done.  My iPad updates alone probably added up to more than 3 GB.  I had 34 app updates, most between 100 and 300 MB.  The Gmail app alone was 398 MB.  Clearly, the 500 MB of data we each get from Verizon every 24 hours doesn’t begin to cover the size of these updates.  The phone updates tend to be smaller, but equally or more numerous.  Windows updates can also be huge, but not always.

I got to choose what we had for breakfast, so breakfast was pancakes and sausage links, both vegan (of course).  After breakfast, Linda was reviewing our confirmation for Pippy Park Campground, in St. John’s, Newfoundland, and noticed that it was for a NO WI-FI site (back-in, trees, full-services, 30A).  Humm.  Their website indicated that they had sites with Wi-Fi, but only in one loop.  We have reservations there for 5 nights starting the 17^th, and that would be a long time to go without access to some usable level of Wi-Fi.  Linda had me call them, and I was able to change the reservation to a pull-through, full-services (50A) site with Wi-Fi for only a few extra dollars per day.  We were surprised, but pleased, that we were able to do this only a few days in advance of our arrival.

We had nice weather on tap for today, partly cloudy with high temperatures reaching up into the 70s (F).  But we had things to do around camp (laundry, grocery shopping, rest, catch up on blog stuff), and felt we had made good use of our time the last two days.  There were, however, two local things that we still wanted to do, so we set off mid-morning to do those.  Both of them were memorials to events that involved or touched Gander and the USA.

In December, 1985, Arrow Air Flight MF1285R, a chartered Douglass DC-8-63CF, was flying a detachment of the U.S. Army 101^st Airborne Division back to their home base at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, after completing their rotation doing peacekeeping duties in the Sinai Peninsula.  The flight was by way of Cairo/Egypt, Cologne/Germany and Gander/Newfoundland.  The flight made it to Gander late in the evening of December 11, where the plane was serviced and refueled.  It took off in the pre-dawn hours on the 12^th, but failed to gain altitude and crashed on the very steep, rugged terrain between the end of the runway and Gander Lake.  Onboard were 248 members of the 101^st Airborne, and 8 crew.  All 256 people perished in the crash.

An online search turned up the following from Wikipedia:

“Icing conditions and pilot error as a result of weight and reference speed miscalculations leading to collision with trees…”

And this from  Sandford.org …

“Fatal Plane Crash in Gander, Newfoundland, December 12, 1985. Washington D.C: U.S. Government Printing Office. 766-882. This portion of the Subcommittee report provides the CASB’s majority opinion that ice accumulation on the wings caused the crash.”

The icing was not surprising given the location and time and year.  As a licensed private pilot, pilot error is always difficult to hear.

 

 

A memorial was established at the crash site in 1995 and was accessible from the Trans-Canada Highway via a gravel road at the runway centerline light towers.  The site was beautifully conceived and maintained., with five major features: Entry bridge, flags, names plaque, peace statue, and cross.  Like the site of all tragedies, it was a sobering experience to stand there and think about why it existed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The other intersection of Gander and the USA was, of course, 9/11.  As an immediate consequence of the terrorist attacks on the USA, all air traffic in North America was quickly grounded.  Prior to the development of true trans-Atlantic aircraft, Gander had been the major waypoint between the US and most of eastern Canada, for flights to/from the other side of the ocean.  Because of its location, and the fact that the airport was, and still is, operational, 38 flights were diverted there.  Those flights had over 6,500 people onboard from 93 different countries.  The people of Gander, indeed of this entire region (including Appleton and Lewisporte) came to the aid of these stranded travelers and saw to it that they were housed, fed, and entertained, and had access to medicines and telephones.  These events became the basis for the musical “Come From Away.”  Development began in 2013 and it was finally produced for the stage in 2015.  It has been in production ever since (possibly with some off time for COVID).

Linda’s online research indicated that there was a 9/11 memorial in Gander, apparently  at an air museum at the airport.  We drove to the airport, but the memorial wasn’t there.  Neither was the museum, for that matter.  We stopped and asked a couple of women who were walking where we might find it/them.  Well, the air museum was in Appleton, at least 20 km back down the T-CH to the west.  But one of them thought there was something at the Gander Town Hall.

 

 

 

 

We put “Gander Town Hall” in the GPS, and it took us directly there.  And there was, indeed, a small memorial there.  A simple acknowledgement of the events, and Gander’s humanitarian role.  It included a small piece of one of the “twin towers,” a gift to Gander from the NYFD.

On the way back to camp, we stopped at the Ultramar fuel station and topped up the F-150.  We then stopped at Walmart and picked up a few grocery items.  Back at camp, we gathered up the laundry, including the bedding and towels, and drove to the RV park bathroom/laundry building, at the other end of the park.  Two washing machines and two dryers, 2$ each per load (2 loonies).  Not bad.

 

Linda started one load of laundry and we then used the showers, in turn, and added the towels to the second load of laundry.  She stayed with the laundry while I returned to the rig to work on blog posts.  Linda had reading material, but as able to make phone calls to her sister, Marilyn, and friend, Diane.  Happy birthday, Marilyn!

It was sunny, and not too windy, and the trailer was starting to heat up.  I deployed the awnings on the trailer to keep the heat gain down and managed to keep the trailer comfortable without running the heat-pumps (in cooling mode).

The rest of the day we worked, read, did puzzles or played games, napped, had dinner, etc.  RVing is not all mountain roads, grand vistas, and spectacular shorelines, although there is plenty of that.  For dinner, we had a green salad with raisins and peanuts, the leftover bow-tie pasta, and grapes, and finished off the Bodacious Smooth White wine.  So, we had grapes in three forms for dinner!  We finished off our last package of cookies for dessert.

We have one more day in Gander, but the forecast is for rain.  We planned to stick around camp and take it easy before moving the trailer again on Monday.  Given the forecast, I put the awnings back in, put the 3P stinger in the truck receiver, and put the lawn chairs back in the truck bed.  With no plans to move the truck before Monday morning, I positioned the truck in front of the hitch, ready to hook up.  The only things I still need to do before we leave is connected the dump hose for the waste tanks, and add some water to the fresh water tank.  I might even drain it completely and refill it to the 50% level, but all of that will wait for tomorrow, or even Monday morning.

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