Gros Morne Part 2

Hi everyone. It's been another dark and wet day here. Although Friday was gorgeous it's been a washout of a weekend in my world. Looks like most of the week is going to be humid and wet too. Looks like New Hampshire is turning into a tropical rainforest. (Grin)

So first let me show you a page from my Newfoundland travel journal that I have been working on.

It's a mixed media painting of the carnivorous pitcher plant that is also the provincial flower of Newfoundland.

 They were flowering when we were there as you can see these droopy looking flowers.

The leaves are these short tube shaped structures. They fill with sweet fluid/nectar and which attracts insects, and when the insects go in to feed on the nectar they get stuck. Then the plant releases digestive enzymes that changes the insects into food for the plant.

These plants grow really well in stark rocky environments because they don't need to rely on rich soil to grow since these insects give them their nutrients.

We saw a lot of these in a part of Gros Morne National Park called the Tablelands.

We went on a ranger lead hike up into the Tablelands. You can see how the mountain the background has a lot of green trees, but where we are walking is rather rusty brown.

 The reason this area is rusty brown is because there is  high amount of iron and other metals in this rock. And this is very special rock. It comes from a deeper layer of the earth called the mantle.This rock is not like rocks we find on the surface of the Earth. In fact the Tablelands is the largest area of mantle rock you can find on dry land on the entire planet Earth.

This is picture (the one above) is also deceiving. Although the mountain behind the ranger doesn't look that tall it is 2300 feet high. I know that isn't really tall compared to many mountains, but the Appalachian Mountains that run from the southeast US all the way up the North American East Coast into Newfoundland, Canada are one of the planets oldest ranges and have been exposed to lots of glaciation which wore them down. This is the same mountain range that runs through New Hampshire where I live.

And yes there were still little patches of snow.

It was very different from the rest of the park.

Hope you enjoyed your visit today.

And happy new week!