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Sunday, August 3, 2025

Newfoundland Adventures part 11: Gander Airport

On a normal day, we get a half 
dozen flights — 
now we've already got three times that many landing in two hours. It's a lot of noise. You can smell the fuel. You can smell the exhaust. 
~~ 38 PLANES

Come from Away starts and ends with the Gander Airport. 

In the post-WWII era planes would land in Gander to refuel making it one of the busiest airports in the world. Famous and infamous people such as Frank Sinatra,  Marilyn Monroe, the Beatles, Adolf Hitler, and Queen Elizabeth II all landed at the Gander Airport. 

Locals would hang out at the bar -- the first 24-hour bar in Newfoundland -- to see was coming. It was the biggest employer, and the center of entertainment.

Today, as Bonnie said in the song 38 Planes, they get a half dozen flights. 

When we planned our trip I asked Tracey for advice. She suggested flying in and out of St. John's. It was only after I booked that I realized I could have flown in and out of Gander. A quick search on Expedia showed the prices is about the same. I'm just not convinced they have rental cars. I'm glad we saw St. John's.

The Gander Airport has a few metered parking spaces out front. They require four 25 cent pieces or a looney. That gets you half an hour of parking. I'm not even sure they check.

Original First Class Lounge
Inside is a large waiting area. Behind it is the original first class lounge. The bathrooms look like a step back in time, too. There is a gift shop, an art gallery, a museum, and the original escalator -- the first in Gander. The escalator is not running. In its heyday, it provided much entertainment for children waiting for flights. Up the escalator. Down the staircase. Or the reverse.

On the wall facing the second floor is an enormous mural. It was too big to appreciate in a quick glance. 





Back in the lounge is a statue of geese. They say rubbing it brings good luck. We can all use good luck.

In the museum I met a family. The wife pointed to the typewriter people were encouraged to use to write a message on and said "I used to play on one in my grandparent's house." OUCH! Don used one for his college papers. I used one through high school. The did remember 9/11, so perhaps they were not as young as my first impression. They were up from St. John's to see the play.


You never know who might be at the bar


The Ladies' Room had a crown to represent
Queen Elizabeth II.
The Men's Room had Frank Sinatra



Saturday, August 2, 2025

Newfoundland Adventures part 10: Gander

Gander. A town many of us first learned about through the hit Broadway musical "Come from Away."

On the northeast tip of North America,

on an island called Newfoundland,

there's an airport.

It used to be one of the biggest airports in the world,

and next to it is a town called Gander.

And so begins Come from Away.

On Thursday, July 24th we drove two hours from Trinity to Gander. They really are in the middle of nowhere. We passed one bathroom stop, and signs to watch out for moose, and kept driving. Gander has four exits off of the Trans Canada Highway making it the biggest town we had seen since we left St. John's.

As we passed the Shoppers and turned into the Sinbad Hotel's parking lot we knew we were in for a special trip.

When I looked at the Come from Away Gander website I saw a link for a hotel package that included two tickets to the show. The options were the Sinbad or the Albatross. The hotels are a toss up, we chose the Sinbad because it was a 10-minute walk away from the community center instead of a 12-minute walk. They were both steps back to the time when Gander was a happening place. Their description on hotels.com says "we are now newly renovated and we are a 4-star hotel." The reviews say the place is a bit dated. I side with the reviews on this one. We checked in after the show and checked out after turning down their breakfast knowing the Gander Bread Box across the street would have better food. 

The hotel was busier than expected due to hosting refugees from the forest fires an hour or so north of Gander. Once again, Gander was the spot to take care refugees. Later in the trip we noticed the ice rink was converted into a place for refugees to get help. It is hard to complain about a room not being ready early (or even on time) when someone struggling with worry over possibly losing their home was taking longer to check out. They assured us it would work out, gave us our tickets for the show and asked us to come back later. We did, and it worked out.

The town reminded me of Ewing, NJ in that the vast majority of homes and neighborhoods sprang up in the post-WWII era. It feels like a planned community. Most everything is walking distance. Houses are clustered together in neighborhoods. Airport Road is the main stretch with businesses and the Steele Community Center on it, and the schools and town hall just off of it. The airport is about two miles from the center of town, and the airport museum is on the Trans Canada Highway -- a road that looks like a small Route 1 as it passes through town and like an interstate highway the rest of the time.

There are interpretive panels in front of many of the places mentioned in the musical. The schools that housed people. The SPCA (which is about to be moved, so their panel is currently not up). Town Hall. Steele Community Center. The day of the show we walked to many of the sites. The day after seeing the show we drove to the ones further afield. That merits a separate post as it will be very picture heavy.

After spending two days in Trinity with very limited food options, we were overwhelmed by the choices in Gander. We asked the owner of a new and used bookstore where we should go for dinner. She mentioned a couple of local places, but when she asked what day it was (Thursday) she highly recommended Rosie's and their Jiggs Dinner or Sunday Dinner Special. She encouraged us to head there immediately because Thursday nights are popular with the locals, too, and there will be a line. The night before we heard Jiggs Dinner referenced in Shenanigans and knew this would be our only chance to try this. It didn't matter what THIS was.

Rosie's turned out to be a 24-minute walk, so we went back to the hotel and drove there. The line filled most of the lobby and was not moving. People in line were doing the same thing we were doing. The servers assured us "it should work out." Hmm...finally after 15-minutes one group went in. Then another. Then a tall woman and her friend cut to the front of the line because they had reservations. She told us she made reservations for 6 pm because she is the director and has to be at the show before the 7:30 curtain. That was the moment when I realized it would really all work out.

A few moments later the staff separated a table set for six into a table of four, and a table of two just for us. We were told ours was table 6A -- a phantom table. As I dashed to the ladies' room, Don ordered two Jiggs Dinners without asking what they were. We got the two last ones!

Had we asked first, we would have continued looking at the menu. It is salted beef with scoops of potato, two hunks of carrots, a slice of turnip, some cabbage, and a scoop of something that did not match anything I could guess. A server came up to us after we had started eating and asked if we knew what we were having. I pointed to that blob, she said it was split peas like you would turn into soup. So, not at all what we would have ordered.

As we paid our check a different server, knowing we were seeing the play, said "the part of the mayor was based off of my father." He further explained here they are called "town managers," but the play changed it to "mayor" because that term is better understood.

This was the moment Come from Away came alive for me. It was when I fully appreciated the town is full of people who have stories from that day. Many of whom are ready and willing to talk about it.

I am here. I am here in Canada.

Friday, August 1, 2025

Newfoundland Adventures part 9: Puffins in Elliston

Puffins are even more adorable in person than they are in pictures. When I realized we would be in Newfoundland during puffin season (May-September, with their peak in July), and that the best viewing place was a mere 45 minutes away (practically next door in Newfoundland), we knew we had to see them.

The seagulls are hanging out peacefully with the puffins. One is a large white bird, the other a tiny black bird.

There is no charge to park or walk on the private property to stare at the island where the puffins land. When you are lucky, one pops over to the property and poses for you. The close ups are of the puffins posing.





 
Don's picture










Newfoundland Adventures part 8: Scenes in Trinity

For $15 CAD, six days a week a local leads a group of tourists around Trinity highlighting its history, and likely telling stories. I actually don't know what he talks about because we did not end up taking the tour. Our first morning we drove to Elliston to see puffins (which are even cuter than you expect them to be), and the second morning we wanted an earlier start to Gander.

The historic part of town is extremely photogenic. I could imagine it being used as a movie set. There is very little that would need to be done to bring it back in time, other than hiding the cars and perhaps covering the paved roads.

Here are pictures from Trinity:

As we walked towards town the village looked like a postcard

Rising Tide Theatre

Behind the Dockside restaurant


Parrish Hall

Post office













My finger is pointing to the distance between where
the ice cream is made, and where it is sold

Golden hour photograph

Forced perspective photo:
Don's picture, I'm still working on this skill

Dusk is even more magical