Brandon to Renfrew

Our week in Brandon was a busy one. N was spending most of her time with our daughter and the two grandchildren. With my hearing aids I’m only able to tolerate a short time of their playing, laughing and crying on a daily basis. If the weather is warm and fine, outdoors is great but this week was cool and wet at times so most of the play was indoors.
The week did however, allow me to catch up on the blog and photos, get an appointment for the truck servicing and fixing a few nagging problems with the trailer. I was also as able to get any shopping done that was required including topping up the wine reserves.
It was cool at nights and fall is definitely in the air. The aspen trees are yellow and leaves are falling constantly. The win is blowing hard each day and rain or showers seem to be the norm.
Finally got the truck in on Friday, our last day in town, for it regular service.
Good-byes were said on Friday evening and Saturday morning saw us on the road heading east with sunny skies and a strong tail wind.
We stopped in Winnipeg to spend a couple of hours with and old friend of mine along with his wife. It was good to see them if only for a short time and we were soon on our way east again heading for Dryden, Ontario. As we headed into Ontario, we could see that fall was well on its way there also. The leaves are changing and occasionally we would see the odd splash of red in the bushes along the side of the road. We arrived in Dryden around 5 pm and settled in at our usual RV Park there, the Northwestern RV and Tenting Park. We had a late dinner and then in bed early. Long days seem to tire me out more than they used to. I wonder why?
We woke up to another frosty morning. Everything was white and the trailer seemed a bit cooler. That confused us for a few moments until N found a couple of windows still open a crack from the day before.
Again, we were on the road early heading for Nipigon. Another nice day and another tail wind. Boy, do tail winds help the gas mileage! We are trying to cover as much distance as we can each day because we have been over this road so many times and the drive is starting to get a bit boring. We arrived in Nipigon by mid afternoon and settled in an RV park that N always wanted to stay at. We are getting caught up on our budget and bookwork and enjoying the relatively warm temperature of 14C. Tonight it’s back to the minus figures so we’ll be scraping frost again tomorrow morning.

The frost was minimal on Monday morning as we left Nipigon. The sun was shining and it was a beautiful day to drive the scenic route down to Sault Ste Marie. The leaves are starting to change and the yellow, orange and red colors were really coming into their prime. We arrived at our RV Park in the Sault late in the afternoon and got settled in. We decided that evening that we would stop into Elliot Lake, the next day, and take a look at the town that was claiming to be a retirement haven. The temperatures are getting warmer now which we appreciate.
We left the Sault early in Tuesday morning after making a phone call to the Elliot Lake retirement living organization. They said that they would make arrangements with the town for us to stay at the municipal RV Park, and set us up a schedule to view the town and some of the 1800 rental properties they have. It was a relative short drive to Elliot Lake (less than 200 km) and by early afternoon we were settled in at a full service RV Park in Elliot Lake, complements of the retirement living organization.
Our first engagement was a tour of the town and surrounding area. We met our tour guide, Tom, at the Retirement Living center at 5 pm. Tom, who has lived in the area since the 50’s gave us the two-hour grand tour. This is an impressive area. There are thousands of lakes in the area, miles and miles of hiking trails and 4-wheeler trails, which in the wintertime become cross-country skiing and snowmobile trails. These trails are kept separate to avoid conflicts between the different users.
We decided to have the organization show us what was available in their rental units so we were set up for another tour on Wednesday morning at 9:00 am.
Wednesday morning saw us visiting several different apartment buildings looking at one and two bedroom apartments. The Retirement Living group is a non profit organization that was able to purchase a large number of apartment buildings, town houses, duplex houses that had been built by the mining companies to house employees when the uranium mines in the area were going full blast. These buildings were built in the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s and the interior décor reflected this. However they have been well maintained and things like heating systems, electrical and exteriors have been brought up to today’s standards. Although the interiors are dated, so are the rents. The one-bedroom apartments start out at $475.00 with hot water provided. Heat and lights are over and above the rent and range from $60 to $120 a month depending how much you economize or don’t economize.
Thursday and we are still in Elliot Lake driving around the area in pouring rain. We checked out the shopping in the area, found out about the great fishing in the area and generally tried to get a feeling for the area. By now you are probably wondering why we have taken this detour. Well, Elliot Lake is just about the same distance from Halifax as it is from Brandon. Also, it is only a four-day drive from here to Texas and/or Arizona where we think we would want to spend the winters. Elliot Lake is a one day drive to Ottawa and to Toronto. On Friday, we looked at a couple more apartments and did our final looking around the area. Tomorrow morning we leave here and head towards Renfrew, just an hour west of Ottawa. By Sunday evening we hope to be at least half way through Quebec and if all goes well we should arrive back in Bridgewater by Tuesday or Wednesday next week.
This will probably be our last post until we are back to N.S., unless we decide to detour to some other place on the way home.

Quote for the day:
You can live to be a hundred if you give up all the things that make you want to live to be a hundred.
  - Woody Allen

Cheers

P & N

Southern Saskatchewan

We woke up to a cold, rainy, windy Friday morning in Swift Current. We can’t complain too much though because this is only the second time on this trip that we have had to hook up and get underway in the rain. In fact, the rain eased off to what we would call an east coast mist being driven by 40kph winds.
Swift Current is a very easy town to get around in and we were out of town and heading due south into wheat country. Who ever said that Saskatchewan was flat never drove on any other highway than the TCH. We drove through rain and wind until we reached Cadillac then turned east and headed through Assiniboia then south through Willow Bunch to Coronach where we stopped for the day. Willow Bunch had the first bi-lingual English French signs that we have seen for a long time. We found out later that this area was settled by Metis which explains the French names and bi-lingual signs.

We drove over plains, through valleys past fields of wheat that are still a long way from harvesting. It has been so wet down here that the fields are literally floating in water. The ground must be totally saturated.
Coronach is a small prairie town with the basic essentials. There is a Co-op gas station, grocery store, drugstore, insurance company, restaurant, motel, spa, a recreation center and golf course. As well, there is a small RV park where we are staying tonight.
We walked around town today, bought a couple of things which have to remain unidentified because they are gifts for certain people we know. The weather has cleared some but the wind is howling. Must be gusting to 70 kph. It was a good evening to stay in and play cards.
Tomorrow we are heading up Route 34 to Bengough where there is a regional park. We will probably stay there for a couple of days, and hope that the rain stops, so the back roads can dry up some. If they dry up we will be able to get into the Big Muddy and see what we want to see.
Saturday morning dawned bright and clear, with the wind down to a whisper. With the wind blowing as hard as it did overnight, we have no idea how the grass around us could be so white and crunchy with frost. We got hooked up and were on the road in the early morning.

Our first stop was in Big Beaver where we dropped in at Aust’s General store. It is a family owned country general store that sells just about anything and everything. Big Beaver and area was also, many years ago, the starting point for the “outlaw trail” that ran from Big Beaver down through the mid western states to Cludad Juarez, Mexico, and was established by Butch Cassidy and his “Wild Bunch”. They ran it like the pony express. They had a series of ranchers who were either on the shady side of the law, or had been threatened into cooperating, maintain a string of fresh horses for members of the gang as they ran from various lawmen and posses. Of course there were also a lot of lesser known outlaws like Dutch Henry, The Pigeon-toed Kid and a half breed known as Bloody Knife. Bank and train robbing along with stealing horses seemed to be the main occupation of these characters.
It was interesting to be able to drive and walk through some of the places where these people rode and lived. Some had small ranches in the area while others lived in caves dug out of the sandstone cliffs of “The Big Muddy”. They even had caves big enough to hold their horses and keep them out of sight.

The only way to visit these caves is to take one of the local tours that only run in July and August. We could have hired a tour guide but the daily cost for just two of us was too high. However we did get to see and walk around Castle Butte which has been a landmark for centuries, used by first nations people, outlaws, and the NWMP. We also spent a short time talking to one of the ranchers in the area who only had 10,000 acres to run his beef on.
We only drove about 60km today and stopped at a nice regional park in Bengough. Bengough is just north of the Big Muddy valley and has a population of about 450. This regional park is small, but really set up for big rigs. Lots of trees and is very quiet. We drove around the local area just sightseeing and finally settled in for the day with a nice sunset and good dinner. We decided to move on towards Brandon and the grand children the next day with a stop in the Turtle Mountain Provincial Park in southern Manitoba, south of Brandon.
We were up early the next morning and on the road by 8 am. Drove from Bengough north to Highway 13 and turned east. It was a beautiful day with a strong westerly blowing giving us a push along the way and improving our gas mileage. We drove through Weyburn, just missing seeing Keefer Sutherland by two days. Weyburn is the birthplace of Tommy Douglas, known as the father of medicare. The town dedicated a life size statue of Tommy Douglas on Friday. Keefer Sutherland is his grand son and was there for the unveiling. Needless to say most of the crowd was present to see the famous actor rather than for the unveiling of the statue.
Around this time we got a cell phone call from family in Brandon advising us that some work schedules had changed for the time we planned to be there. After the call, N suggested that we drive straight through to Brandon now and arrive early. The driving was good and the tail wind still strong and the traffic was light, so we headed to Brandon.
Crossing into Manitoba we left Sask. route 13 and entered Manitoba route 2. This route took us all the way east to route 10, then just a few short km and we were at Meadowlark RV park in Brandon setting up camp for the next week. There were some surprised grand children when we called to let them know we arrived early. They were at our trailer door in 15 minutes.
This next week will be spent with family, cleaning up our trailer, getting the truck serviced and generally getting ready for the final leg of our trip back to Nova Scotia.

Quote fro the day: Egotism is the anesthetic that dulls the pain of stupidity.
  - Frank Leahy

Cheers

P & N

Fort Macleod to Swift Current

Tuesday Sept. 7 saw us wake up at 5:30 am to a heavy hard frost. The truck was coated in an ice like frost as was everything else outside. At 6:30 am I put the thermometer outside and it registered –1C, and the sun was up. It would have been colder at 4 am so this has been the coldest morning of our entire trip. The weather forecast is calling for snow in the mountains tonight. Time to head east.
We got underway around 8am after being serenaded again by the local coyote packs. Their morning songs will be missed. We will also miss Buffalo Plains RV and tenting Park and the owners Sue and Ernie. They run a small, friendly, clean oasis of a park that is ideally situated for many day trips through southwest Alberta. The location is very quiet helped of course by being about 12KM away from any major highway, but having an excellent paved road leading to their location. The washrooms and laundry facilities were clean and well maintained and the whole place was well managed. We will be back and can highly recommend it to anyone traveling in this area.
Traffic was light through Lethbridge and we stopped at Tabor to pick up another dozen corn from a local truck vender.

We arrived in Elkwater, Cypress Hills around 1 pm and got quickly settled into our site. Very quiet here with hardly any campers left after the long weekend. We took a long walk along the lake and found out that we have not been walking enough lately. Our legs started to get tired after a couple of hours.
Had a great dinner of steak, baked potato and corn on the cob. Just as we finished dinner three deer paid us a visit. The doe and her fawn did not want the other one around so an interesting chase took place all around us until the interloper was scared off. It is very quiet here. Only about three rigs in the section of the park we were in.
The next morning, Wednesday, we left for Swift Current. It was overcast but no rain. But there has been a lot of rain this year in Saskatchewan. Fields have standing water in low areas, which are filled with ducks and geese. We heard on the news that only 13% of the crops have been harvested and farmers need about three weeks of dry weather for the crops to mature and the fields to dry out so they can be harvested.

We drove through Maple Creek where the TCH was washed out in June. The highway is divided here but only one side of the highway is open with two-way traffic, east and west. It is hard to say if it will be finished this fall or not. Anyplace where there were hills you could see slumps and slides because the ground is so water logged.
We arrived in Swift Current early in the afternoon and found lots of spaces available at the Trail Campground, right in town. We got set up, found the local mall and did the shopping we needed to do, groceries etc.
Thursday morning we woke up to cloudy skies and a forecast for rain. We decided to stay in Swift Current for another day. I was able to find out on the internet that a representative from the hearing aid company that made my aids was scheduled to be at a local Pharmasave Store. Since my aids needed some work on them I decided to go down and see if I could get to see the representative. We got there at 9:30 am and she took me right in as the person who had an appointment for that time had not shown up. She did the repairs that were needed and within 20 minutes was on my way with hearing aids that worked much better. Talk about good luck. This representative is only in Swift Current every second Thursday and this was the day! N did all kinds of Christmas shopping here as well, so we can now say our Christmas shopping is done.
Tomorrow morning, Friday, we head south to Coronach, a small town near the US border. Coronach is central to the area of the “Big Muddy”, which was home years ago to many famous outlaws from the USA, including Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. There are a large number of historic sites to visit and a fair number of museums that should be interesting. We plan to spend three to four days in that area and then head towards Brandon Man. To see the grand kids. There is no WiFi in Coronack and area, so this will be the last you will hear from for the next week, or until we arrive in Brandon.
Quote for the day: When they discover the center of the universe, a lot of people will be disappointed to discover they are not it.
  - Bernard Bailey

Cheers
P & N

Moving on Tomorrow

Well here it is Monday, the end of the Labor Day week-end. The highways will be a mad house today so we are staying here until tomorrow morning when we leave for Elkwater in the Alberta side of Cypress Hills.

 On Saturday morning we found a great grocery store right here in Fort Macleod called Family Foods. The meat looked like it was local, there were lots of bakery items including whole grain breads of several types, and local produce. We were able to buy green and yellow beans even this late in the year. Great service here too as our groceries were carried out to the truck for us.
After lunch, we drove the 3 km to Head Smashed in Buffalo Jump. It was really crowded as the weather was warm and sunny and although we have visited this place five years ago it was good to be back. It is a well-designed center with a World Heritage Site designation. The center is built into the side of the cliff next to the actual buffalo jump that 1st nations people used for thousands of years. The hills are known as the Porcupine hills and afford a view of the southern short grass prairie that is unparalleled.
Feeling energetic, we walked a trail along the foot of the cliff, where the buffalo that went over the cliff were butchered and prepared for the long winter ahead. Just about every bit of the buffalo was used for something. Food, clothing, shelter, utensils, just about everything the plains Indians needed to survive.
The Blackfoot, which consist of three or four clans, are the traditional 1st nation in this area. Their territory used to stretch from Montana to central Alberta. Traces of human activity go back hundreds of centuries long before even the Blackfoot.
At the beginning of the trail was a posted bear warning, along with coyote and cougar warnings. Have to carry the bear banger all the time out here!
Saturday was the last of the warm weather. Sunday dawned with a cold windy rain. The temperatures never got above 7C so we stayed inside and caught up on cooking, baking and cleaning. It did clear up in the evening and we were able to go for a walk, although it was cold and windy. We talked to a couple from Switzerland, who pulled in late in the afternoon and they had driven through snow on Route 22 “the cowboy trail”. Sunday night was cold, probably the coldest we have had this trip. We woke up and had to put the furnace on at 5:30 AM. With the amount of moisture that came off the roof in the morning sunshine, it must have been covered in frost. On the way to the washroom  we heard coyotes howling and yelping to each other from two different locations. Don't know if the cool morning had anything to do with this or not!
Today is a bit warmer than yesterday but not short sleeve shirt time. Quite cloudy but not raining and the temperature is about 12C. We are packing up today to leave tomorrow morning for Cypress Hills. Weather for the next few days will be marginal, but we’ll have a great time! It might a few days before we can post again as we will be in some of the more remote areas of Saskatchewan.
Quote for the day:

There are too many people, and too few human beings.
  - Robert Zend

cheers

P & n

Fort Macleod

Today is the fifth day we have been here at Buffalo Plains RV park and we will be staying here until Tuesday next week through the long week-end. In our previous post we said we were going to drive to the town of Foremost to look at their RV park and perhaps stay there.  On Sunday we made the the trip through Lethbridge to Foremost back up to Taber. It was raining most of the drive and gave us a look at the prairies in south western Alberta under these conditions. It always has been hot and dry here in our previous trips through this area. It was wet and certainly not hot as the temperature never went above 8C all day.

We arrived in Foremost, checked out their municipal park and decided that we would continue to stay at Buffalo Plains Park. After a short drive through town we headed back to the TCH, Alberta route 3. On our way through Taber, we stopped and bought a dozen ears of the famous Taber corn. On our last trip through Taber we bought corn and it was without a doubt the best ever. By the time we got back to Buffalo Plains the rain had eased up and the clouds were starting to break up. The park cat came over to officially welcome us to the area for the next few days.

We packed a lunch and got under way early Monday morning. There is a lot to see in this area so we decided to head back to the mountains, go up to Crowsnest and visit the Frank Slide area. The first thing that we noticed was fresh snow on the mountains ahead of us. What we got in rain arrived as early snow on the higher mountains. It was really weird because when we drove down from Cochrane there was no snow to be seen on these same mountains. Just shows how quickly things can change in this part of the country. The Frank Slide occurred in 1903 when the side of Turtle Mountain collapsed and millions of tons of rock took out half of the town of Frank in less than two minutes. The interpretation center is a fantastic place with human interest stories, history of mining in the area and an excellent explanation on the formation of different kinds of mountains. You could almost become a amateur geologist with the information at this center. The interesting thing is that there will be another collapse of the south side of this mountain. It's not a matter of "if" but "when". Movements in the mountain are being monitored on an ongoing basis and a system has been set up to evacuate people well ahead of any collapse, they hope!  This photo shows the CPR rail line going through the existing slide residue. An interesting piece of folk lore is that for centuries the First nations people would never set up camp at the base of Turtle mountain which they called the trembling mountain.
We finished off the day by visiting Pincher Creek then heading back to our campsite.

Tuesday we headed out to the Remington Carriage Museum in Cardston, about a 45 minute drive to the south of Fort Macleod. It was another fine day, a bit cool but sunny. Cardston is another of these southern Alberta prairie towns. Neat, tidy, lots of flowers and, of course, wide streets. This museum has the largest collection of carriages, wagons and early cars in North America. We took a guided tour and then did the tour on our own so we cold take our time. Some of the carriages were magnificent. We ate lunch there and then took a tour of the restoration area within the museum. An elderly gentleman gave us the tour and explained the process of restoration. It is a fascinating story that is too long to be told here. A side note. This is our 25th anniversary year and N did not get a Yellowknife diamond when we were in the NWT. However, here in Cardston, she got her prairie diamond. It seem that when people were moving into the western provinces as settlers, young couples would meet, fall in love and get married on the way out, Wagon trains moved slow! Since jewellers were not among the early settlers,  diamond rings were created out of horse shoe nails. Our host in the restoration shop made N hers. So, now she wears a prairie diamond. We left Cardston and drove to a small town south of Lethbridge called Raymond. The reason we went to Raymond was to visit the Old Country Sausage shop. (www.oldcountrysausages.com). Owned and operated by Klaus Schurmann, this shop produces smoked meats, dry cured bacon and ham, back bacon and all kinds of sausages, using only herbs, spices and sea salt. He uses no binders, no fillers, no MSG, gluten free,no sugar, no grain products, no artificial colouring and no nitrates. Needless to say we bought as much as we could bearing in mind that our freezer space is limited. It is real good stuff!!
The next day, Wednesday, we just stayed at the campsite and took it easy. The wind was blowing, it always seems to blow out here, but it was a good day. The sun shone, we had showers, some cloud and more sun. Watching the weather out on the prairie is fascinating. You can see rain showers coming when they are miles away. The sky can be black in one quarter while the sun shines in the other quarter which makes the light patterns on the ground change constantly.

Thursday was a good and bad day. We spent the morning in Fort Macleod touring the old North West Mounted Police fort and museums. Fort Macleod is a good history lesson on how the Canadian west was developed in a far more peaceful manner than the American west. There is a exceptional first nations museum devoted to how their clothing was made, how they travelled and lived. The decorations on and quality of some of these exhibits was magnificent.  This was the good part of the day. The bad part started in the afternoon at the campground. It was time to empty our holding tanks and this campground did not have sewer outlets at each site. This meant that we had to hook up to the RV and move it to the central dump site. This type of move means that our slides have to come in, gear has to be stowed etc. We did all of this, hooked up and moved towards the dump site. All of a sudden we heard a SNAP and I remembered that I did not lower the TV antenna! The power line I hit with certainly lowered it for me. The antenna was broken off completely.  We dumped the tanks, got back to our site and I went up on the roof and disconnected the cable and brought the pieces down. I needed some new parts for sure. Friday morning I got on the phone and found a dealer in Lethbridge who said he had the pieces I needed. We drove to Lethbridge only to find out he did not have the same pieces I needed. On our way back we decided that we might be able to repair the antenna and get it back up. Not that we had to watch TV, but I wanted to make sure that I could keep the roof watertight, and the only way to do that was reinstall the antenna. With N's help we found a piece of wood and cut a piece out of it to slide inside the two broken pieces. Two or three screws, some gorilla tape and we were back in business. Went up on the roof, straightened some bent aluminum and attached the repaired antenna. Good as new, almost!!
This brings us up to date. I'll post a new album later today.

Quote for the day:

A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that works.
  - John Gaule

Cheers

P & N