howley

-howley?
-howley.
don’t know if it was bethy what’s her name or the other fellow but over dinner one of them came up with the solution to my problem with time on the rock. i was heading back and i said that i cannot go down a road with too many choices as i shall never make the ferry. as it was i had to leave a day early as the crossing was at 4pm and i didn’t want to drive the tch when the moose come out to play.

howley!

i had also planned on heading back up to bonne bay to see about what had been determined about my book with the park.

i knew of howley as once heading back to bonne bay i was driving on fumes and saw that there was a gas bar in howley - it was only when i realised that the gasbar was some 20 clicks down the road that i hoped for deer lake instead.

howley seemed safe. it was the interior, not as interior as buchans but then again that was good as there would be less options. it would be in wander out nice and surgical.

took my time the last morning as i had to go to the post office to for a final bit of mailing it didn’t open until 9am and then to the bank for some cash. hoped to be on the tch by 10.

except that the post office didn’t understand that tax isn’t paid on postage when it is internatonal, one spends more than $5.00, and the stamps are placed on the envelop in front of the worker.

she’d never heard of it so she called first the other worker, who hadn’t either, then down to torbay who also was clueless.

this meant a trip into st. john’s to the main post office wasting time getting through the traffic, parking etc.

was on my way by 11. focussed, in control pacing myself for the drive across the island once again.

until the salvage turn off. it is salvAGE by the way age rhymes with stage. i read crummey’s book of poems, knew that yet another minor cbc presenter stays there - there are like cockroaches on the island all over the place and more come each year so why not. it was not far off the road. i could see eastport which supposedly had a gallery, and be back in an hour tops.

it was that picturesque outport that makes it to all the post cards. colourful houses, clear sky, etc. it has a working fish plant but didn’t get the charm. of course found two houses that i would take - these so separate from town it seems that an atv is needed to get to them.

tried photographing but went more for formal arrangements than things, spoke to a couple of people, saw a cat puking. picked the best blueberries i have ever had on the rock - think it was the heat, they were juicy as i was eating them by the hands full.

i found that what kept me wasn’t the big things but here there were more subtle aspects of habitation. ladders placed at odd angles, things left, it wasn’t along the main drag that i kept me there but walking behind houses looking around corners.

three hours later... i see the sign for the ferry to st brendan’s again a place i would have liked to go and while it was a little out of the way i could still make it to howley and bonne bay if i didn’t dawdle i could have a look at burnside then race back

seeing the path to the look out at st chad’s i climb i as who knows there may be something at the top. a mistake as i saw st chad’s from above and wanted to head back over burnside taking the dirt road.

but no i had to stop the outing was coming to an end. i reckoned that if i went over the speed limit by ten clicks - hardly anything while i wouldn’t be able to make it to bonne bay tonight i could stay in deer lake head up first thing in the morning and still make the ferry.

the drive was a painful. all these places i couldn’t stop not even along the tch. no botwood, no bishop’s falls which were along the road. much less all those evocative places. no arms, no coves, no harbours.

only stopped for gasoline in gander, slowed in badger where my coffee mug was sacrificed to the road god at the buchan’s highway, and as it was headed down the 401 to howley racing the light.

this penchant for the remote has to be looked into. driving the causeways into howley i wish that i had more time. i know people who wouldn’t leave the machine in howley, they would find it creepy and isolated but, i wanted to stay a while - a while being a week or so not an hour.

it functioned. there was a convenience, a shopping centre, a club, even a café that served espresso and had free wi-fi - it was for sale though. in the warm evening light everything seemed at peace - a father was pushing his son on a swing in the park - wrecking my snap - a kid with a skate board was waiting for something, the hotel was hopping, down on grand lake there was a couple taking in the evening, ignoring the black fly - there was the bridge for the old newfoundland railway in the distance.

an otter swimming in the wetlands

grand lake from town wasn’t as impressive as red indian lake in millertown but there were things to do in howley. howley wasn’t as big as buchans but it also wasn’t as depressing.

left when it was dark, thinking that maybe maggie’s café would make a profit if instead of twinning with hillside lube there was a residency there.

don’t know what makes deer lake so popular - the jungle jim’s?, mary brown’s thighs? but once again all the hotels were full.

pressed on to corner brook giving up on gros morne.