An early start to be among the first to see the sun in North America

This morning we awoke early to watch the sun rise at Cape Spear, considered by many to be the easternmost spot in North America.
Note - points of controversy: 1) Some consider Semisopochnoi Island in the western Aleutian Islands of Alaska as being the easternmost point of North America since it is at 179°46'' East (in the Eastern Hemisphere), 14 minutes west of the 180th meridian. It is therefore so far west that it is "east". 2) Others consider Nordost Rundingen, Greenland at 12°08'' West, to be the easternmost point of North America, but many disregard Greenland because it is not politically part of North America. 3) Nordost Rundigen, Semisopochnoi, and Cape Spear, Newfoundland (52°37'' West) are all island locations, so some claim Cape St. Charles at 55° 37'' West on the Labrador Peninsula as the easternmost point of mainland North America.
We're going with Cape Spear being the easternmost point and say that we saw the day arrive before almost everyone else in North America!

5:23am

5:39am

5:47am

5:50am

5:56am

5:59am

There were also gun emplacements, magazines, and shelters at Cape Spear used during WWII to guard St John's from attack.

The guns had a mechanism (now gone) that allowed the barrel to be raised up to fire and then disappear below the side of the hill to the view of any vessels off the coast.

At least it is where "Canada begins" (or ends).

We were discussing on our drive yesterday what would be due east of us - we were thinking Ireland, but it is actually north of Newfoundland - according to this, Portugal is the land that is pretty much due east.

Cape Spear Light - the current lighthouse (built 1955) is on the far left, the original building which was both the lighthouse and the keepers home is on the far right. The other buildings were support buildings (may be relatively recent buildings).

 When we left Cape Spear, we had a close encounter with a young moose. Two vehicles in front of us had stopped when the moose was crossing the road - they were able to proceed but when we came by, the moose decided to continue walking down the road. I tried to pass him on the right, but he just tried to outrun me - there was a guardrail on the left side, so the only way for him to leave the road was to pass in front of our Jeep so I slowed to try to give him room. Two tractors for tractor-trailers were behind me and one of them honked. I finally drove over into the oncoming traffic lane (no one was coming) to try to "herd" him to the right and that worked.

The moose had gone over to the left shoulder into a yard but started trotting again as we came alongside...

And then started trotting down the road - and then galloping as I tried to pass him on the right. We have heard horror stories about the damage and death that they cause - since they are so tall, if you hit one in a normal car/Jeep type vehicle, the body ends up in the passenger compartment of the vehicle and often kills the occupants. We were glad to have escaped this encounter with no one hurt!

We drove from Cape Spear to Signal Hill, where Marconi first verified that wireless communication was possible. We visited Cabot's Tower on Signal Hill, but were not able to visit the museum today. We hope to return on another day before we leave St John's.

The view from Signal Hill over St John's was beautiful!

The land that is furthest out is Cape Spear where we had watched the sun rise.

This evening we had the blessing of getting to meet "The Excel Addict", Francis Hayes, in person! http://www.theexceladdict.com/ Dwayne has been getting his newsletter via email for many years - maybe back to the days when Francis was first sending his Excel information out - 12 years ago. When we came onto Newfoundland, Dwayne mentioned that this was where The Excel Addict lived, so emailed to see if we could get together - and it turned out that he was in St John's today and could come by and visit us. We had such a nice visit with him.