This morning we drove out to Signal Hill. We were fighting drizzling rain all morning. The Signal Hill Tattoo was canceled for the day due to the moisture.
We hiked several trails in the area and some some spectacular sites from he tops of the hills.
We had to be different and try to scale the walls along the trail. Mom didn’t mind because we were getting some exercise.
St. John’s is quite a unique town. It reminds us of San Fransisco both in topography and buildings.
Looking down into the harbor. There is a section of town called the jellybean houses. They are all bright colored and attached homes. The entire city seems to scream unique!
We went to the top of Signal Hill and learned about the cannons and the signal tower, Cabot Tower. We got to send a morse code message of our name from the tower and learned about signal flags.
The hill was used to let companies know via signal flag when their ships were coming into port.
We explored the Queens Battery and learned about the barracks and the cannon duties. Part of the XPlorer program was to find odd things in the barracks. We found a modern toothbrush, a flashlight and a padlock!
We also had to identify the oldest cannon.
Today they still fire the NOON cannon. We hung out and watched the cannon. It was really loud and echoed off the hills.
This is Cabot Tower (the signal tower).
Next we went down the road to the GeoCenter. The GeoCenter is a building built around and into the hillside. This area used to be a quarry. The building offered a look into the history of the Earth’s rocks. The displayed of the rocks were superb.
We also did a program on stars. B dazzled the interpreter with his knowledge of mythology, stars and nebulas.
We discussed fossil fuels in depth with each other and looked at the different types of oils.
We watched a video on how oil is obtained in the ocean. This display was put on by Exxon.
Another room was dedicated to the Titanic.
The rock samples and fossils captured out attention for a long time.
Finally we explored the rock wall. You could spray the wall with water so make things stand out. It was very cool.
We also watched a 3D movie called Meerkats! It was super funny and reminded us of Meerkat Manor.
We spent the afternoon hunting Pokemon and exploring downtown St. John’s. The pokestops led us to see amazing street artwork all over downtown.
A park filled with Pokemon Masters! There must have been 150 people scattered between three stops all with lures.
This gem was tucked in before two buildings. An area we NEVER would have wandered to without the game. But there were droves of people playing the game and wandering down the paths with us so we were safe.
Several years ago they commissioned artists to make the signal boxes art work! The entire city is packed with amazing art on signal boxes.
We ate a quick dinner at No Name Pizza…so good it doesn’t need a name. It really was!
Then we headed to Cape Spear for an evening campfire sign-a-long. The fog set in very dense. We could barely see and were soaking wet from the moisture in the air.
The sing-a-long was great and the two staff members were very talented. We sang and laughed. We even taught them Moose/Alpacca! We had hot cocoa and s’mores over the fire.
