Jean Cabot, Who Was Really John Cabot, Who Was Really Giovanni Cabotti
We had quite the session of goodbyes this morning and Madeleine even got out of bed to see us off. She had elected to take the day off school as opposed to go and feel awful the entire day. We had a five hour drive to look forward to (hurrah!) all the way to Bonavista Bay. It was pouring rain, like damn. I did quite a lot of school work in the truck during the drive, so go me. We stopped for lunch at a road side diner that served traditional Newfoundland home cooked food and then drove to Trinity, where we stopped to look around town. We ended up at a chocolate shop whose owners spend seven months in Trinity and the rest of the year in Toronto/Ottawa area in Ontario. Kind of a different lifestyle. We
bought some chocolates and I got some hot chocolate like the kind I’d had in Montreal. It wasn’t quite as good, unfortunately, but I believe my standard of hot chocolate is now quite a bit higher than the average persons. Shout out to that café in Montreal, you
raised my expectations. Then, after stopping at the washrooms, we explored the little town. We checked out both of it’s churches, the first being an Anglican Church surrounded by a rather old graveyard, dating back to the mid-18th century at least. We checked out the inside and it looked rather like an inverted ship, the old wooden kind. Then we stopped at the, rather smaller, Roman Catholic church. It was lacking in a graveyard and it wasn’t open to the public so we got a quick picture and moved along. Then we checked out a little tourist shop with lost of locally made stuff. I got bright red acrylic boot toppers for my combat boots when I get home, kind of hoping to add at least a little bit of colour to my usual black, with grey, with black, with (sometimes) blue or pink. We had spent quite
enough time in the little town, so we continued on our way. Our
next stop was in Bonavista at their lighthouse. We took a little hike along the cliff walls that edge the shoreline down to the statue of Giovanni Cabotti, or John Cabot, or Jean Cabot, depending on which language you speak. He was an Italian explorer who was hired by the British to scout out the new lands to the west. Cape Bonavista was the point where he first landed in 1497, so that was a bit of history there. Then we drove down into the town for dinner. We decided on Skipper’s for some more seafood. I had some fish cakes with pickle rhubarb relish and they were delicious. We could also see the sunset over the bay through the window, so that was beautiful. Unfortunately, it also meant that we spent the rest of our drive in twilight and in the dark. With the ratio of human to moose population (about 3:1) it was rather dangerous and nerve racking, especially when we caught sight of all the skid marks lining the highway. We got to our cabins safe and sound luckily. We had seen a few moose during the day, but we saw none after dark, thank the gods. I did some more work when we got set up in our cabin and while Isaac fell asleep. Peace out m8s.
