Sunday ; Sunny and very warm.
Around 3 PM we heard a fire truck from the firehall around two blocks east of us heading down Main Street, where it stopped around two blocks west of us. A few minutes later … another one. Then another ! Then another ! Soon we could hear sirens approaching from all different directions, meaning fire trucks from nearby towns were responding. From our enclosed balcony we could see a bit of smoke rising above the trees, and could smell it.
Around 4:30 PM we decided to go for our afternoon walk and see what was happening. A local small strip mall, a flooring store on one end, a paint store on the other end, seemed to be on fire. Many trucks and many firemen were there, all doing … not much ! Smoke was coming out of vents and other openings on the roof. As we walked by two Manitoba Hydro trucks showed up. OH … the firemen had to wait for the electricity to be turned off before they could do much in the way of entering and venting.
As we walked away we could hear the firemen starting up chain saws. By the time we arrived back home a few minutes later it was obvious that they had entered and vented the building. Thick, black, toxic smelling smoke was rising and wafting directly over buildings and trees and … just above our condo building ! YIKES !
Our balcony and suite were beginning to stink ... <cough cough >. We closed all the balcony windows and the balcony door, and our bedroom window, turned on the bathroom and kitchen exhaust fans, and cranked up the air conditioning.
By 6:30 PM the smoke had become even thicker and even more vile smelling. I decided to walk over and take another look. YIKES ! ! ! The entire five store strip mall was engulfed in flames. More firetrucks were continuing to arrive from nearby towns. A large crowd had gathered to watch. Roads were closed. Police were everywhere. As were ambulances. I think our small town firemen may not have the best of the best of respiratory equipment, and they were being subjected to toxic smoke inhalation.
Well … bid adieu to the paint store, the flooring store, the pet food store, the tax preparation business, and the financial advisor business.
We found out the next day that the pet food store contained animals and … well … <sigh>
Tuesday ; Sunny, very warm, humid, brief bouts of rain in the afternoon.
Had stitches removed today, at the Steinbach Family Medical Centre, from the chest and finger cysts surgically removed. Chest incision looks fine, healing well, no discomfort. Well … probably no discomfort because the cyst was removed from the cardiac surgery incision scar, which is permanently numb. The little finger doesn’t look nice, and it hurt like hell to have the tightly tied stitches removed. AND … it began to bleed again as the nurse was removing the stitches. So … finger is ugly looking, still fragile, prone to bleeding, and painful. Long way to go !
After having the stitches removed we went to the RV storage yard to get the truck and camper, and bring them home to get them prepared for departure on Thursday. We put the camper back onto the truck, and finished just as it began to rain briefly but heavily. Once back at our condo I flushed the camper’s water heater, drained the plumbing anti-freeze, flushed the plumbing lines, and refilled the freshwater tank. Joanne began packing food and supplies into the camper.
Flin Flon, here we come !
Wednesday ; Steinbach to Winnipeg and return
Sunny and hot.
We left home this morning at 10:45 AM, heading to Winnipeg. We had tickets to a matinee performance at Rainbow Stage and wanted to have lunch in a restaurant beforehand. Lunch was at Baba Kay’s, a Ukrainian restaurant near Kildonan Park on the northern edge of Winnipeg. Lunch was very good.
Kildonan Park is north Winnipeg’s huge municipal park. Rainbow Stage is the outdoor live theatre venue within the park. We have been attending performances at Rainbow Stage intermittently for fifty years. They usually present two musicals each summer. This year we bought tickets to both of this season’s plays / musicals.
Today’s presentation was “The Hockey Sweater”, a musical play written by a French Canadian from Quebec, but translated here into English. As always, Rainbow Stage did a great job of presenting this musical play. And the story / play / musical was well written. BUT … we were both disappointed. Most of the cast of this play are children. And the lead character role was played by a poorly casted boy who was too young for the role, lacking the vocal strength to sustain a two and a half hour talking and singing role. It was simply too much for such a young boy’s voice. Most of his dialogue and singing were indecipherable. Most of the time he sounded like Alvin the chipmunk. Not his fault !
Driving from home in Steinbach to the restaurant, then home from Rainbow Stage / Kildonan Park gave us an opportunity to experiment with and learn the GPS / map function on our new (to us) iPhone.
We arrived home shortly after 6 PM, and worked on truck and camper loading / preparations for a couple of hours before having a late supper.
Flin Flon, here we come !
Thursday ; Steinbach to Watchorn Bay on Lake Manitoba
Mostly sunny, very warm.
We finished our preparations for departure and pulled out of our condo’s parking lot shortly before noon. We stopped at Giant Tiger and refilled our five gallon water jug. We stopped at Superstore’s Mobil Fuel Bar and refilled the truck with diesel, then shopped for some groceries at Superstore. Before leaving the Superstore parking lot, and Steinbach, we went for our early walk, from Superstore to E. G. Penner Building Supplies and back, then around the perimeter of Superstore’s large parking lot.
North on Hwy. 12, east on Trans-Canada Hwy. 1, we stopped to have a late lunch at the “Centre Of Canada” rest / picnic area. Continuing east on TCH 1 to Hwy. 101, Winnipeg’s Perimeter Highway, then north and east around Winnipeg to Hwy. 6, then north on Hwy. 6. The further north of Winnipeg we got, the warmer and sunnier it became. At Moosehorn we turned west on Hwy. 237 for 12 km. To Watchorn Bay Provincial Park on Lake Manitoba, arriving around 6 PM.
We had been here once before, about 45 years ago, for a weekend of camping with our high school friend / Joanne’s Maid of Honour, Shirley, whose first job after graduating from university was as the Public Health Nurse in the nearby small town of Ashern, a teensy bit south of Moosehorn.
We drove around the campground, selected a campsite, then went for a long walk around the campground and surrounding farming area. As we walked down the road an old German farmer in a pickup truck stopped and rolled down his window, to have a friendly (and lengthy) chat with strangers, proving the “Friendly Manitoba” tagline on our province’s license plates, I suppose.
Around 7:30 PM I lit a campfire, then cooked supper on it. EXCELLENT ! We had a leisurely supper at our picnic table beside the campfire, enjoying the lovely weather and beautiful view of the setting sun out over Lake Manitoba.
AHHHHH … what a wonderful day !
Friday ; Watchorn Bay to somewhere (?) north of Grand Rapids
Sunny and hot. HMPH … didn’t expect it to be hot this far north.
We got a late, leisurely start to another lovely day. Before leaving Watchorn Bay Provincial Park we refilled our freshwater tank and dumped our waste holding tanks, then went for a long walk around the campground and area. We left the campground around noon.
We returned to Hwy. 6 at Moosehorn and stopped at the Co-op store to buy a jug of milk before continuing north on Hwy. 6. At Fairford we refilled with cheap rez diesel at the Pinaymootang Gas Bar. We stopped in the parking lot of a restaurant / car wash / laundromat / fish processing plant in St. Martin Junction to have lunch. We stopped to refill with cheap rez diesel again at Pelican Landing Restaurant & Gas Bar just a few km. south of Grand Grapids.
Pelican Landing was our planned boondocking location for tonight, but once there and seeing it, we … decided to keep on truckin’. About half an hour north of Grand Rapids we found a gravel road leading off the highway towards hydro transmission towers and decided to go down the gravel road a bit exploring, looking for a good overnight boondocking location. It wasn’t hard and didn’t take long to find one. We pulled a few feet off the road into the bush and … home for the night !
It was about 6 PM when we stopped for the night. We went for a long walk down the gravel road, enjoying the hot weather and beautiful, abundant wildflowers. We picked a few wild strawberries, small but very sweet ! While Joanne prepared supper I did a repair on the bathroom exhaust fan.
WHEW … gruesome quantity of horseflies and mosquitoes !
Saturday ; north of Grand Rapids to Wekusko Falls Provincial Park
Sunny and very hot, seems unusual for this far north. Less bugs today.
We left our bush boondocking spot this morning around 10:30 AM and continued north on Hwy. 6. At the (non-existent ?) village of Ponton we turned left / west towards Flin Flon on Hwy. 39 while Hwy. 6 continued northeast towards Thompson. There seems to be no towns located along Hwy. 39, they are all situated a few miles south of the highway on the rail line from The Pas to Thompson. Somewhere around the village of Wekusko on the rail line we pulled off the side of the road to go for an exercise walk and have lunch in the camper. After lunch we continued west on Hwy. 39 until turning north on Hwy. 392 towards Snow Lake. Before reaching the town of Snow Lake we reached our destination for today, Wekusko Falls Provincial Park on Wekusko Lake.
We found a site that we liked, got settled in, and I took a nap. After I napped we went for a long walk, from our campsite back to the entrance of the park, then all the way through the park to the lakefront where I checked out the fishing prospects. We returned to our campsite, took the truck and camper for a short drive to refill the freshwater tank at one of the campground’s water spigots, returned the truck and camper to our campsite, then I walked over to the boat dock to try fishing.
I fished for an hour. WOO-HOO … first fish caught in Manitoba in 35 years ! I caught a small Northern Pike, known in Manitoba as a “jackfish”. I released it, I don’t find bony Northern Pike particularly appealing to eat.
After fishing I returned to our campsite, started a campfire, and cooked supper on it. I am hoping to cook many of this trip’s meals on campfires, something I find challenging and enjoyable. Sliced onions, spiralized potatoes, carrots and zucchini in foil packets, and marinated steak grilled over the fire. First time we have tried spiralizing vegetables to be wrapped in foil and cooked on the fire. Worked very well !
We relaxed by the campfire after supper until about 9:30 PM. We returned into the camper just as it began raining lightly.
DSK
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