Sunday ; Revelstoke, British Columbia to Airdrie, Alberta
Low overcast, intermittent rain, snow flurries through all the BC and Alberta National Parks, temperatures from +1° C to +7° C.
We checked out of Stoke Hotel and departed Revelstoke at 10:35 AM. We continued eastbound on Trans-Canada Hwy. 1 through Revelstoke National Park, Glacier National Park, Rogers Pass (lots of snow), into the town of Golden, BC, where we stopped to eat our picnic lunch in the car, and reset clocks and watches from Pacific Time to Mountain Time. Through Yoho National Park, into Alberta, past Lake Louise, into Banff National Park, past the town of Banff (where we honeymooned 51½ years ago), and onto Hwy. 206, the ring road around Calgary at 5 PM.
Around the west side of Calgary to the north side where we found our way to Darwin’s Charcoal BBQ Chicken, a Filipino barbecued chicken restaurant, where Joanne ordered two Filipino barbecued chicken dinners with pancit side dishes, to eat in our motel room later in the evening.
From the restaurant we headed north on Hwy. 2 to the town of Airdrie. I refilled the minivan with fuel at Superstore’s Mobil Fuel Bar, then we checked in at Motel 6, arriving at 6:15 PM. WHEW ... a lot of miles, on a poor weather day, very tiring !
Yes, yes ... supper was superb ! And the mountain goats and elk we saw today were interesting.
Monday ; Airdrie to Medicine Hat, Alberta
Overcast in Airdrie and Calgary, clearing slowly as we drove, sunny by the time we got to Medicine Hat, +15° C.
We checked out of Motel 6 this morning at 10:30 AM and drove a very short distance to Superstore where we bought a few grocery items for today’s meals. We were finished at Superstore and on our way at 11 AM. We headed south on Hwy. 2 back towards Calgary and the Trans-Canada Hwy 1. Before reaching Calgary’s ring road, inexplicably our GPS routed us eastbound on Hwy. 566, a two lane “back road”, for about forty kilometres, then southbound on Hwy. 9 to connect with TCH 1 eastbound. <shrug>
We stopped to have lunch in Brooks, parked in the parking lot of the museum. We arrived in Medicine Hat at 3:30 PM, and checked into the Baymont Inn & Suites for two nights. At 7:30 PM we drove a very short distance to Church’s Texas Chicken and bought take-out chicken for dinner. We first became fans of Church’s Texas Chicken while in La Feria, Texas. Where it is known simply as Church’s Chicken. HA HA HA !
This afternoon as I came up behind a large sewage pumper truck on the highway ... CRACK !
**** ! ! ! Guess I’ll be spending tomorrow afternoon trying to repair a large rock chip in the windshield.
Tuesday ; Medicine Hat, Alberta
Sunny, very windy, +18° C., chilly in the evening.
I’m sitting here at 10 AM, sipping on a cup of coffee that I brought back to our room from the breakfast room. I have to stand up to close the window I opened just a short time ago, because of the noise of the large sewage pumper truck that has just arrived and is now noisily sucking something out of this hotel. I sure as hell hope it’s the coffee from the breakfast room !
“Hello ? Johnny’s Sewage ? Please hurry to the Baymont Inn & Suites and suck out all the coffee we made this morning. It’s horrible ! ! !” HA HA HA !
Rather than repair the windshield chip by myself, which would require me to borrow a step stool from the hotel, then replacing the windshield chip repair kit I keep in the car, I decided to just let a professional take care of the job. I needed to go to Canadian Tire to buy some replacement fuses ... I had to replace a fuse yesterday and didn’t have the correct size, so installed an oversize fuse temporarily ... and there was a DECO windshield repair kiosk located in the Canadian Tire parking lot. Good decision ! The young man working the kiosk examined yesterday’s large chip in the windshield, and a smaller one adjacent ... two chips yesterday (!) ... and also found another chip at the very bottom of the windshield that had already cracked about six inches or so. <sigh> The most economical approach to the three repairs required was to purchase a one year service plan to cover all chip and crack repairs for one year. And that includes windshield glass waterproofing and anti-glare treatments, and headlight restoration treatments. <shrug> Okay ... fix the three chips and one crack, and treat the windshield glass, and restore the headlights today please. While he worked on that I went into Canadian Tire and purchased a pack of 20 amp fuses, then replaced the oversized fuse I installed yesterday with the correct one. Many birds with one stone, so to speak !
From Canadian Tire we drove to Superstore to buy a few grocery items for today’s lunch, and to refill the minivan with fuel. Except ... the fuel bar was “out of order”.
So ... at 7:15 PM we went out again. We refilled the car with fuel at Superstore’s Mobil Fuel Bar, then drove to Brooklyn Dumpling Shop and bought a variety of Korean / Filipino fusion cuisine take-out for supper. We returned to our hotel room and ate supper while watching the two hour season finale of DOC.
Wednesday ; Medicine Hat, Alberta to Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan
Sunny for most of the day, +15° C., sky / clouds looking pretty ugly at dusk, blizzard conditions expected overnight !
We checked out of Medicine Hat’s Baymont Inn & Suites at 10:15 AM and continued eastbound on Trans-Canada Hwy. 1. We stopped to buy lunch at SubExpress in Swift Current at 12:30 PM, eating our lunch parked at Wal-Mart. We were back on the road at 1:30 PM. We arrived at Super 8 in Moose Jaw at 3:30 PM.
I napped briefly upon arrival, then spent the rest of the afternoon trying ... and failing ... to get my laptop connected to the motel’s Wi-Fi. There was no problem connecting the i-Phone, but ... I could not connect the laptop. I have no idea what the problem was ! I gave up in frustration. Partially because the motel’s front desk clerk was unable to provide any assistance. She didn’t even know the location of the router, in order to satisfy my request to reboot it.
By the time we were ready for supper, I was too tired and frustrated to even want to go out to buy supper. I persuaded Joanne that we could survive by simply scrounging whatever leftovers and snacks we still had. We ate our “scrounge dinner” while watching Survivor.
Thursday ; Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan
BLIZZARD ! -8° C., WCF = -14° C.!
Apollo woke up this morning, asking to go out, at 8:15 AM. I took him outside and ... BLIZZARD ! ! ! In front of the motel there was a tow truck pulling a minivan out of the ditch. Apollo was NOT PLEASED ! “Why are here HERE ? ? ?”
I attended a seminar / webinar in Winnipeg from 11:30 AM to 12:30 PM, via ZOOM. Excellent content ... terrible presenter ! When finished with that we all loaded into the car, ... all of us dressed as if it was the middle of winter. On the prairies ! Which it was ! ! ! We drove very carefully out of the motel’s parking lot, across a large intersection, and into the Superstore Mobil Fuel Bar. I refilled the minivan with fuel ... and almost froze to death doing so ! We parked at Superstore and went inside to buy a few items. We left the car locked, engine running, heater on high, Apollo lying on his bed on the centre console, with his frozen little face positioned right in front of a heater vent.
After purchasing our groceries we drove another very short distance to One Stop Eats, a fast food court mall and ordered lunch at RedHotz Hotdogs & Poutine. We drove back across the intersection, back to the motel, and had lunch in our room.
Apollo and I napped !
At 7 PM we went out again, this time to buy supper. The blizzard had ended. The motel’s parking lot had been cleared of snow around 5 PM. We drove downtown to Safeway and bought something for dinner tomorrow night. Then to Angel Jane’s Chinese Restaurant for a giant bowl of pho style beef noodle soup to take back to the motel to have for supper tonight while watching THE PITT.
Driving conditions were treacherous ! I hope the highway will be in better condition tomorrow than the city streets were today.
Friday ; Moose Jaw to Moosomin, Saskatchewan
Blowing snow, very windy, extremely cold, -10° C., WCF = -19° C.
Horrific driving conditions all day !
Refilling the car with fuel at Esso in Moosomin, Saskatchewan was the coldest experience I have had in 38 years !
We checked out of Super 8 in Moose Jaw at 10:30 AM and continued eastbound on Trans-Canada Hwy. 1. The snow had not yet been cleared from the highway. The strong wind from the north was blowing snow across the highway. The thick cloud layer was so low to the ground as to occasionally be fog. Visibility was near zero for most of the day, particularly the first half of today’s drive, from Moose Jaw to Indian Head. Our speed for most of the day was around 80 km/hr on a four lane divided highway with a speed limit of 110 km/hr. There were multiple cars that had slid off the road into the ditch. And of course ... there were plenty of assholes doing their best to maintain 110 km/hr or better, jeopardizing the lives of everyone they tried to pass. <singing “Slip Sliding Away”>. Most of them were huge black pickup trucks (just like we had for 16 years !) with Alberta plates !
Apollo hated every minute of the day, from the time we left our motel room in Moose Jaw until we were in our next motel room in Moosomin. Poor, old dog ! Shivering, frozen paws, walking / hopping on three legs, occasionally refusing to walk and needing to be carried, unwilling to defecate all day until his 6:30 PM walk, after we had arrived at Motel 6 in Moosomin.
We had lunch in Indian Head from 1:00 to 1:45 PM. We arrived in Moosomin at 3:30 PM. By the time I had purchased fuel and we were checked into Motel 6 it was 4 PM.
We all feel drained by a stressful day. We’re hoping tomorrow will be better, but forecasts suggest it probably won’t be.
Winter in Victoria. Driving half way across the country ... there and back ! <whispering> I don’t want to do this any more !
Saturday ; Moosomin, Saskatchewan to Winnipeg, Manitoba
Sunny, +2° C.
All three of us are grateful that today’s weather was not as severe as the past two days. It was cold, but sunny, with little wind. And while I had anxiety about another day of driving conditions like yesterday, today was much easier. The highway was clean and dry east of Moosomin. There was no snow on the farm fields, so I guess the blizzard started at Moose Jaw and ended at Moosomin.
We checked out of Motel 6 at 10:45 AM and continued eastbound on TCH 1. We crossed from Saskatchewan into Manitoba and stopped in Brandon around 12:30 PM, immediately reset our clocks and watches to 1:30 PM (CDT), and ate our lunch in the parking lot of a Subway restaurant on the highway on the west side of Brandon. We were on our way again around 2:15 PM.
We reached the western edge of Winnipeg around 4:30 PM. We drove to our Tuxedo neighbourhood and stopped at Superstore to buy supper for tonight, then refilled the minivan with fuel at Oodena Gas very near our home. We arrived home at Winslow House at 5:30 PM.
I was really pissed off at Oodena Gas. They are an indigenous enterprise, and employ indigenous pump attendants to provide full service at the pumps. The customer simply pulls up to the pump island, then goes inside to wait to pay when the pump attendant has finished pumping the fuel. And providing other “full service” like cleaning the windshield and rear window.
Our car is filthy from driving in yesterday’s blizzard. And instead of cleaning the windshield and rear window while the fuel was pumping, the attendant stood beside our car with his face focused on his phone screen ! As soon as the tank was full, he hung up the hose and nozzle, and quickly disappeared.
That sort of shit does nothing except reinforce prejudices !
We are all very glad to be home !
DSK
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