Saskatchewan and Manitoba

Here we are, Day 4 and finally I have a few minutes to tell you about our adventures.

May 25   SASKATCHEWAN

I don’t have anything against Saskatchewan, but sometimes I wish I could fold the map in such a way that we can skip over it, especially when the objective of the day is to drive through it to get to Killarney, Manitoba. That said, we did find a pleasant roadside picnic spot for lunch and stopped for some delicious cinnamon buns at Caronport.  

To pass the time on this long road trip, I'm attempting to take a picture every hour.  It's turning into an interesting road diary.  Here's one hourly photo of the many hours of flatness on the prairies.  

May 26  MANITOBA

“This is the day that the Lord has made.  Let us rejoice and be glad in it”.  That was my dad’s response when we gathered together as a family to celebrate his 93^rd birthday.  What a blessing it was to be able to arrange our travels to be there on his special day. 

Unfortunately, our RV battery problem wasn’t solved and we again we woke up rather cold!  To add insult to injury, the puppy chewed through the power chord on the battery charger.  (Dumb dog.) With frost in the forecast we stayed in my brother and sister-in-law’s house for the second night.

Sunset on the farm

May 27  PROBLEM SOLVED

This morning we got up bright and early and made it to Winnipeg for brunch.  From there it was to an RV repair shop.  A fist full of fuses was all it took to get everything in working order again.  But it took a repair technician to find where all those fuses were hidden.  Problem solved!

Now it feels like we’re finally on our camping trip.  We enjoyed a lovely evening camping at Aaron Provincial Park near Dryden Ontario.  The weather’s beautiful and we can finally relax and enjoy our time travelling.  With that, we celebrated by having a family camping tradition:  steak, yummy rice and creamy corn.  Life is good.

Northwestern Ontario - stone, bush and water

Alberta

May 24

Alberta

Here we go!  We’re on our way to New Brunswick.  But getting there is half the fun so we’re going to make it a long road trip!

We’ve driven the road from Edmonton to Southern Alberta countless times over the years.  Is there really anything new to see?  Well we found another route today and stopped at the Brooks Aqueduct to poke around a bit.  The aqueduct is about 3 km long and was built between 1912 and 1914 to move water across a small shallow valley providing irrigation from the Bow River to another region.  It’s an amazing feat of engineering and construction for its time.  The aqueduct was replaced by a regular canal in 1979. 

The aqueduct

The canal next to the old aqueduct

This is where the aqueduct goes under the railway tracks.

We continued on to Dave’s home stomping grounds south of Grassy Lake and spent a lovely evening with our good friends Dennis and Irene, ‘camping’ overnight on their farm. 

Road Trip Ahead...

Before heading out on a long road trip with the RV,  one should do a trial run.  It was a good idea to do this trial run as we found out on the first night that we had no heat. Battery problems? And the fridge door fell off!  At least there would be time to get these things fixed properly before heading out on our cross-Canada RV Glamping Road Trip to New Brunswick.

This 'trial run' trip on May Long Weekend was to Canmore with our friends Bob and Donna.  We had a wonderful time together enjoying the beautiful scenery once the clouds lifted.  It was definitely colder than Vilca, Peru so we spent more time inside - at a couple of coffee shops, art galleries, and in the hot tub at the local pool.  We also made a day trip into Banff, thinking we'd enjoy the Hot Springs but the parking was horrendous so we settled for exploring the Bow Falls and warming up in a coffee shop instead.  Monday the skies cleared and the drive home along the Icefields Parkway was gorgeous.  No matter how many times I've seen the mountains, their grandeur never ceases to amaze me. God created such a beautiful world for us to enjoy.

Along the creek near our campground

Time to warm up with a good coffee!

This was not 'photo-shopped'.  

Bow Falls or maybe Brrr Falls.

Along the Icefields Parkway.  

This bear was along the side of the road just outside the Park.