Change of Plan
Two, actually, regarding my cross-Canada road trip.
The first decision I actually made about two weeks ago, and just haven’t mentioned it online yet. After driving around on gravel roads in Manitoba for a bit, I discovered that the Slaywagon doesn’t handle very well on gravel roads. I think the suspension is set wrong. I basically lose almost all control when on washboards.
Given that Labrador’s only through road (just completed last year!) is all gravel and frequented by transport trucks, I decided I really didn’t want to spend three or four days driving under those conditions. So I’ve scapped the idea of driving through Labrador. Perhaps some other time.
The second decision was more difficult. My sabbatical and vacation time is growing shorter, and going to Newfoundland would definitely make my return home late. It’s a six-hour ferry ride each way to the island, and then a twelve-hour drive from the ferry terminal to St. John’s. So if I wanted to spend a full day in St. John’s, which I do, it would basically cost me an entire week.
At present I have just enough time to get home and do the things I want to do on the return trip. I could book another week off work to make the Newfoundland trip, but I find I’m already looking forward greatly to the trip home and the things I wanted to do in Newfoundland are not sufficiently enticing to justify an extra week of travel.
Halifax and PEI will be sufficiently east coast to complete the eastbound leg of my road trip.
I am disappointed at not making it an “island to island” trip (Vancouver Island to Newfoundland) and at missing going to the easternmost tip of civilized Canada, but I think I can live with it.
If I end up dwelling on it in later years, I can fly out to St. John’s, rent a car and do Newfoundland and Labrador in a combined trip. This is what I’m telling myself, anyway. Hopefully it will work.
