RCMP Musical Ride is Here

It is another beautiful sunny day. Marcel made breakfast this morning and then made some calls and booked a B&B (Marilyn’s Hospitality House) in L’Anse aux Meadows for Thursday night.We left around 11 am to go exploring. As we were driving through town (on our way out) we saw a large tractor trailer that said “RCMP Musical Ride” on it. We stopped at the visitor centre just outside of town and they confirmed the RCMP Musical ride was performing that night in Lewisporte. We drove back into town and bought tickets for it. 

From there, we then drove to Gander to get more cash from the BMO - ATM and then drove to Rogers Cove and back to Lewisporte. We drove many of the bay roads today. It seems the majority of these towns survive on the fishing industry. We drove through Birchy Cove, Baytona Cove and Comfort/Newstead Cove. We returned to our RV at approximately 3:30pm and just enjoyed the day for awhile. 

Marcel called Marilyn’s B&B again as we had been thinking about changing our overnight to Friday night. After several phone calls and conversations, we decided to leave it at Thursday, stay at Marilyn’s and take White Island Boat tours on Friday morning out of L’Ans-aux Meadows. Marilyn told us she would book it for us.

For dinner tonight we had cold chicken, ribs, bean salad, and pasta salad. We left our RV around 6:15 pm to go to the RCMP ride show. We arrived a few minutes later as the entertainment grounds were less than 2 km from our park. We didn’t realize it at the time, but they had us park about ½ km from the show site – and it was all uphill. We were hauling our coats and folding chairs. The area around the field was packed with people sitting and a lot standing. After hauling our chairs, we wound up standing for the entire performance – as there were people standing in front of where we put our chairs and there was nowhere that we could put the chairs where people weren’t standing already. The temperature was about 27 C and with all the body heat from all the other people attending the show, there really was no need for our jackets either. 

Nothing like driving >1000km to see something we can see at home! And to top it off, the show was disappointing. It should have been better organized, so people could see. I think, they should have told those without chairs to sit on the grass; put those on chairs behind them and then put those who insisted on standing behind them. There were bleachers, but not enough to accommodate anywhere near the number of people who bought tickets for the show.  We could not hear the announcer – partly because the sound system was so poor and partly because people talked through most of it – and that may be because they didn’t realize someone was talking. 

During the show, I noticed a couple behind us and the lady was about a head and a half shorter than me.  I knew there was no way she was going to see anything where she was. I spotted a gap in front of me and suggested she move up. At first, she was reluctant. I told her, I could easily see over her head.  She was very grateful and I found out after the show, that she is the wife of the local United Church minister and her sister lives in Russell Ontario, so they go to Ottawa regularly. 

We were very disappointed as it lasted only 25 minutes and cost us $10 each.  It seemed to me when we saw a dress rehearsal years ago in Ottawa, on the RCMP grounds, it lasted much longer than that - and it was free! I can’t imagine the cost to bring all those officers and horses and gear in the transport trucks over on the ferry for less than a 30 minute show! These are our tax dollars hard at work again.

The walk back to the car was thankfully downhill. We got home early enough for us to spend some time working on our trip diaries and this blog. Tomorrow, we leave for Gateway to the North RV park in Deer Lake.