Gander Day 2

July 6, 2017   THURSDAY

We will spend today in Gander.  There’s really not much else to see here that we haven’t seen yesterday but we will give it a try.  We found the McDonald’s to have a coffee and use their internet.  We’ve lost our Sprint roaming since there are no affiliated towers away from the Avalon part of Newfoundland.  We are trying to download an app called Whatsapp which enables us to place calls.  Problem is we need internet to do that and our campground does not have good signal.  Jim was finally able to download and actually made some wi-fi calls with his phone.  I’m not having such luck.  I try to “message” through facebook.

We made a trip to the local mall and took a walk through it.  Not very big so that was easy.  We did find a store which carried about anything you needed.  Jim needed to find some things for the motorhome.  We stopped by the Country Kitchen for lunch.  Pretty good home cooking.  I had fried chicken with mashed potatoes and coleslaw.  They were indeed mashed potatoes…they appeared to bake the potatoes and just mash them.  It was good enough.

We took a drive east of Gander to the Silent Witness Memorial.  It’s a very small park up on a hill with a lake below.  It is the site of a plane crash on December 12, 1985.  All about were killed.  The 101^st Airborne of the United States.  They were returning to Kentucky after serving a hitch in the middle east.  Their plane stopped in Gander…It’s called the Crossroads of the World…to refuel.  Right after takeoff something happened and the plane crashed on that hill and slid down towards the lake.  At the memorial there is a monument of a soldier holding hands with two children.  There are three flagpoles…one with the Newfoundland flag, one with the Canadian flag and the flag of the United States of American I the middle.  There is also a very tall steel post topped with a cross which is made from the steel of the emergency door from the plane that crashed.  While there we met a man who was actually stationed in Gander at the time of the crash and guarded the crash site when it happened.  He told us all he remembered about the crash and about how the recovery went.  Very sad indeed.

Before we went back to the motorhome we made a stop at Cobb’s Lake Park.  It was a beautiful park with covered areas with wooden loungers all around.  There were picnic tables and even a sand volleyball court.  There is also a concession stand which was not opened yet.

All in all it turned out to be a great day seeing new things, meeting interesting people and enjoying the sun and a little warmth.