Year 3 Week 13

September 10 to 16, 2006

Lac du Bonnet, Manitoba to

Year 3 week 13

 

Sunday ; Today was sunny and warm.

The Explorer group spent the entire morning sitting around a couple of picnic tables socializing, and enjoying the beautiful warm fall weather. Around lunch time, they all began to prepare for departure, and by early afternoon, Joanne and I were the only ones left in the campground. We had a great time with this new group of friends over the last few days. I'm glad we decided to attend.

After lunch I read, napped, then sorted and rearranged my "magic tool box". Performing a magic show always results in a need to sort, rearrange, and "prepare" the contents for the next time I'm going to perform magic. Hey ... magic doesn't just happen by magic, you know. HA HA HA !

I downloaded and processed the photos I took on yesterday's outing to Pinawa. I had experimented with the new camera by switching it to take photos at a higher resolution setting than I usually use. Today I downloaded the photos to the computer and got to see the results. I don't like them ! I'm switching back to my normal, lower resolution setting.

 

Monday ; Lac du Bonnet, Manitoba to Moosomin, Saskatchewan

Today was sunny and warm.

We left Lac du Bonnet heading south on Hwy. 11, then southwest on Hwy. 214, then west on Hwy. 44, through Beausejour, then south on Hwy. 59 to Winnipeg. We went around Winnipeg on the north side, on the Perimeter Hwy. 101. We stopped at the new Flying J in Headingley to fill up with diesel. West on Trans Canada Hwy. 1 to Portage La Prairie. We stopped at Portage La Prairie to have lunch, buy groceries at Safeway, buy pet foods at PET VALU, and supplies at Wal-Mart. Before leaving Portage La Prairie we went to a Shell station and adjusted the air pressures in all 12 truck and trailer tires. I also phoned our friend Sep Liang, in Medicine Hat, Alberta, to arrange our visit with him in a few days.

We continued west on TCH 1, planning to stop for the night at Brandon. At Brandon we decided to continue to Virden. At Virden we decided to continue to the Saskatchewan border. At the border we decided to continue to Moosomin. We stopped for the night at Fieldstone Campground & RV Park. After arriving, we realized we had been here before, about 16 months ago. This is where Bo "escaped", and went completely wild, chasing baby bunnies in the forest. It took us a week or more afterwards to get him to remember that he was obedience trained !

 

Tuesday ; Moosomin to Swift Current, Saskatchewan

Today was sunny and hot. I had to reset all our clocks and watches today. We didn't cross into a new time zone, but Saskatchewan does not observe Daylight Savings Time. This morning we realized that late yesterday we had crossed from Central Daylight Time to Central Standard Time when we crossed from Manitoba into Saskatchewan.

We departed Moosomin this morning continuing west on TCH 1. We stopped to refill with diesel at Grenfell. We stopped for lunch just before we got to Regina. The flat farm lands of eastern Saskatchewan became the rolling pasture lands of western Saskatchewan. The harvesting of the grains is finished. The fields are covered in a golden coloured grain stubble. Foxes can be seen hunting in the fields.

I've always found the drive across the Canadian Prairies, from about Winnipeg to about Calgary, to be incredibly boring. Obviously I'm not the only one. Late this afternoon we drove through the little Saskatchewan town of Herbert, where municipal building lots cost one dollar ! HA HA HA !

We stopped for the night at Trail Campground in Swift Current. My memory of Swift Current goes back to about 1982, when I spent 6 weeks here on a Canada Post project < shudder >.

 

Wednesday ; Swift Current, Saskatchewan to Medicine Hat, Alberta

Today started out sunny and mild, but clouded over during the day as we travelled west. The forecast for the next few days is not very good. Cold and raining !

Today's drive was endless expanse of ranch lands. We saw a herd of antelope. Lots of cattle for Bo to bark at. Bo loves barking at "cows". He gets himself so excited barking at cows that he's then inspired to bark at hay bales. Bo ... they're hay bales ! I guess they don't have cows and hay bales down in Alabama !

We left Swift Current continuing west on Trans Canada Highway 1. We stopped to refill with diesel at Maple Creek. We stopped to have lunch at the Alberta Border Tourist Information Centre. At Medicine Hat, we headed for Wild Rose Campground. It was full. We went to Gas City Campground instead. Nice park, but very expensive. The campgrounds in Medicine Hat seem to be filled with workers living in trailers. I guess there's a bit of a Natural Gas boom going on here. We noticed when we were in Newfoundland in the spring that most of the jobs advertised in the Newfoundland newspapers are here in Alberta.

We got set up in the campground, then I phoned both Dodge dealers in town to make an appointment for tomorrow for routine service for Lanoire. Neither dealership could accommodate me before next week. My very limited experience with Dodge dealerships seems to be that their service departments are always booked up for the next 3 days !

We had dinner, and spent the evening visiting with our friend Sep Liang at his new condo apartment in Medicine Hat. Sep is a scientist working for the Canadian Government at CFB Suffield nearby. He relocated here recently from Kingston, Ontario. His wife Susanna is currently in Ottawa attending a training course. I have been friends with Sep since 1990 when we met on a ski trip to Switzerland with the federal government employee ski club in Ottawa.

 

Thursday ; Today was gloomy and drizzling rain all day.

We spent the afternoon shopping and running errands. Wal-Mart, Safeway, Island Inkjet, Petcetera, Shoe Warehouse. Not much luck ! No RV bathroom tissue at Wal-Mart. No satisfactory shoes at Wal-Mart. Impractical to refill printer ink cartridges at Island Inkjet. No satisfactory shoes at Shoe Warehouse. No cat flea spot-on treatment at Petcetera ! Guess there's not much of a flea problem in this arid part of Alberta.

We spent the evening with Sep. We drove to his apartment, and I showed him our first year of travel photos before going out for pizza dinner at Houston Pizza. After dinner he drove us around Medicine Hat, showing us his first home here, when he lived here from 1995 to 2001. We returned to his apartment, and viewed our year 2 travel photos. It was really great to be able to visit with Sep yesterday and today. We don't get to see him very often.

 

Friday ;

 

Saturday ;