I find myself in the capital (St. John's) every November (on business).

The St. John's Courthouse is my favourite building in the capital - one which I really should have a fine exterior of.

After we finished up our Indian dinner, I suggested that we check out the interior of said St. John's Courthouse. We wandered around a bit until a guard noticed us...a guard who then unlocked actual courtrooms & told us about neat spaces which we should check out on various floors.

It bummed me out that I didn't have my tripod.

Next on the agenda was a St. John's Ice Caps game.

This is the AHL - the league which the Toronto Marlies play in; the league where pro teams keep their extra players (i.e. a young kid who still needs some seasoning before they become ready for the NHL).

The Ice Caps lost the game to the Norfolk Admirals. After our feed of Indian food, I didn't want any beer or food at Mile One Centre (so I can't say much about that). As for the arena experience, it lived up to the hype about being a loud, raucous place with devoted followers. I couldn't help but cheer for the Ice Caps in such an atmosphere (plus they were playing the Tampa Bay Lightning's farm team, so what did I care?).

I snapped a picture of the sticker for Boston's farm team (the Providence Bruins) before we went on our way.

The next morning I was excited to ride the new Mount Pearl Skatepark, but the weather wasn't cooperating. The sun started to come out, but the puddles weren't exactly evaporating when it was only a degree or two above freezing.

As we pulled up to the park, I noticed that every puddle had a thin layer of ice, coating the entire park in a mix of ice & slippery concrete.

I let off a few expletives.

We couldn't wait for the park to dry because we were going to Bell Island for the day (and because it didn't look like it was going to dry in any short amount of time).

I've been to Bell Island before, but Shahlene hadn't. Therefore we did the normal tour & she was able to rack up another lighthouse. We wandered into the inviting grasslands behind the lighthouse, which were now that picturesque brown/yellow, seeing as it was November.

I snapped a few exteriors of the Jackson Memorial School as well.

We didn't have any luck, but local kids love arson; so I decided it was good to get a few exteriors at least.

The consolation in not riding Mount Pearl's new skatepark was that I could ride Bell Island's (new skatepark). I obviously wanted to ride both, but I was quite happy being able to ride Bell Island's skatepark at least. You may laugh at the above scene, but that skatepark you see is better than all but 4 skateparks in this province (a province with ~15 skateparks).

Not having rode Forest Glade for 4 years, I subsequently haven't rode a spine in that long either. If I don't do things regularly, I build up fear in my mind, but thankfully I still managed to 180 the Bell Island spine to 30kph turnaround.

On the way home the next day, we left the highway a couple of times to check out a handful of communities.

The above pictures are from Chance Cove (which is only a kilometer or two from the Trans-Canada Highway).

We also drove the 30km NL-204; which has its turnoff a couple of minutes before Clarenville.

It was a curvy, scenic highway beside the ocean...one which felt a lot longer because of all the elevation changes.

Southport is the community above & it rewarded us nicely for completing the road.

I also loved miniscule Butter Cove - a village of maybe 20 houses & 1 steep road.

We had to get going though. Long Beach was here & I knew if Compton showed up, that we'd be in trouble.