Kittiwake Peninsula; Vernon's Toy Shop

We took our first penalty today. Musgrave Harbour, stage 3-3, was an average speed of 89 km/h through this town. The road was new and smooth, rolling back and forth and over rises as we sped alongside the ocean. But some of the corners and crests were a little blind, and there were some hard rights, and there was a deviation (as they call it) from the main road. This was a turn in to the driveway of a school. So here we are trying to average 89, and they put us through this tight spot, with very sharp bump in it. The bump was probably 4 inches high over a small culvert. Back on to the main road and try to get the time back. Couldn't do it. We ended up 18 seconds late, with a 10 second window, so we've incurred an 8 second penalty. Results haven't been posted yet, so we don't know how everyone else did there. We cleaned everything else on the day.

We lunched at the Barbour Historical site in New-Wes-Valley. Beautiful. Then continued around the Kittiwake pennisula. Gooseberry Cove was a highlight. Another end-of-the road community, and the view coming in was spectacular. We left the video running as we came in, so watch for that once it's posted. Soup and sandwiches there. Back out a couple of stages, then a long transit to Marystown for the night. We stopped, though, at Vernon Smith's Toy Shop. My beard is a little thinner on the chin from my jaw dragging on the ground. 25 to 30 immaculately restored classic cars, all of them convertibles, in a pristine new showroom.  www.vernonsantiquetoyshop.ca

This is one of those situations where there are no sufficient words to describe this collection. It was like being in a church; everyone was looking at these cars with reverence, awe, wonder. Overwhelming, it was such that it literally brought me to tears. These are incredible cars, from a 1908 Buick, to a '33 Chrysler Imperial, to 2 Cadillac Phaetons, '29 and '31. Lots of others from the '40's and 50's as well. There was not an item missed, the paint was phenomenal, there were period pieces of hats, or records, or stuff that was with each car (including some 45's to go with the built-in record player in one car). He knew each car, of course, like the back of his hand – this one has this accessory, this was one of only 26 built, that one had built in headlight dimmers (late fifties), these had swivelling lights ('29 Phaeton). And so on. My pictures should do them better justice than the above web site. The really mind-boggling part of this? It's in the village of Swift Current, 25 km. off the Trans-Canada Highway in Newfoundland. It's apparently worth about $5 million.

Then, after we pried ourselves out of there, we were stunned by the sunset over a hill (mountain?) over a lake. Just breath-taking. But then there was the remainder of the transit in the dusk to Marystown. I appreciated the extra lights to be able to watch for moose.

We arrived in Marystown, moose-free, and checked in at the hotel. I took the car to the arena, gave it a wash myself (free wash previous 2 nights), and took the car in and checked it over. Rotated the tires front to back, wiped it down, cleaned the windows. Meanwhile, other teams are pulling motors apart, rebuilding stuff, and I'm there with my little plastic rubbermaid container of loose tools. Mind you, I'm not going 120 in Musgrave Harbour like some of the Targa class guys are doing.

It's now 12:30 and I'm going to quickly go over tomorrows notes. Honest, I'll post some video tomorrow (maybe).

Bruce

just checked the Targa web site - we're in fourth place with the 8 second penalty. The top three are all still clean.