We spent a quiet night at the rest area overlooking the rather empty Churchill River and managed an almost goodnight's sleep aided by massive applications of DEET on the head and ears. Speedy has fancy canopy windows which allow the windows to be widely open for ventilation even in the rain. They come with shades which pull down from the top and bug screens that pull up from the bottom.
The shades are great for keeping out the light but unfortunately the pleated screens do not keep out the bugs. Mosquitos and black flies manage to find their way around the pleats which have a bit of side-to-side slack to be able to slide easily. Once they find the way in they made a bee-line directly to our heads. The DEET kept them at bay so they weren't buzzing in the ears (or biting).
After arising late, closing all the windows, having coffee, breakfast and swatting the dozens of insects already in the van. We looked out at the swarms outside the van, saw another camper coming out of the trail to the Churchill Falls overlook waving his hands and quickly ducking into his van. We decided that maybe we didn't have to hike to the falls on a very gray morning and drove to the town of Churchill Falls, a few kilometers down the road.
It is another small company town, existing to maintain the Churchill River hydroelectric station. It has about 600 residents, a few stores, a very modern school and a gas station. We needed to fill up for the the 330 km drive to Happy Valley.
With Speedy's tank filled, it was back onto the Trans-Labrador Highway and into the rain. It wasn't supposed to rain until this evening, but the forecast was off by about eight hours. It rained pretty steadily most of the way to Happy Valley. The good part was the road was paved and the rain splashing up cleaned most of the remaining mud off the undercarriage. It didn't do much for the residue on the sides.
As we drove east the forests became thicker and the trees taller. It became a boreal forest of mostly Black Spruce. There were a few areas of recent fires, particularly near Churchill Falls where there were bad wildfires last summer and a smaller one this past May. As we got closer to Happy Valley, the birches started to appear and it was very mixed spruce and birch.
By the time we reached Happy Valley, the rain had ceased and we stopped at the Visitor Center to pick up the local maps, then at Northern Lights Ltd., supposedly an outdoor supplies store, in the hope that it would have some permethrin spray that we might use on the screens to deter the bugs. It is the strangest outdoor store we've ever seen. Several aisles of outdoor themed tchotchkes, clothing, a complete head shop with many bongs and glass pipes (hadn't seen one of these since the 70's), a downstairs hunting, fishing and camping store (what we actually expected), and last but not least "adult specialties" behind closed doors. They had a dozen varieties of DEET-based insect repellents (which would have destroyed the screens) but no permethrin.
After two nights of boondocking, it was time to find a campground. The only one nearby was at Gosling Lake a few kilometers out of town. It is a new renovation of an old town park into a campground and wasn't really quite finished yet. While most of the sites had electricity and water, they were still waiting on the electric company for power to supply hot water, so only cold showers. Fortunately, the local YMCA has hot showers available, so we will try there tomorrow. They also offer free RV parking with electricity. What's more there is a Tim Horton's within walking distance. We may stay over in their lot.
We have rigged up some long paper triangles that we've stuffed into the edges of the windows to compress the screen pleats against the frame. So far, no bugs have gotten around them. Tomorrow, we will stop at the local hardware store to try to find some foam strips to do the same thing on a more permanent basis.
No photos today ... too dark and gray.
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