Headin' to ......Winnipeg!

July 23 to August 9
We said our tearful goodbyes to our family in Red Deer and headed out on a long and extended road trip. It's been a year since we last saw our families in Manitoba so a stop-over on our way to the Canadian East Coast was in order.

We enjoyed favorable winds and relatively light traffic on our way through the prairies. Some folks find the long drive through Southern Alberta and Saskatchewan rather boring. Us? We love it. The wide prairie vistas are breathtaking in our opinion. The scenery changes every mile or so.....well maybe every ten miles or so.

The Canola fields were blooming when we left. The yellow flowers will be gone in a few days. The seed pods then begin to form.

The TeePee in Medicine Hat. It's huge!

Southern Saskatchewan vistas.

Salt piles near Chaplin, SK.

Our overnight stop was Walmart in Moose Jaw. Easy access to the highway and close to fuel,  groceries and restaurants. Red Deer to Moose Jaw is a very long day. At least 8 hours drive and not a distance we would like to tow often, but it gets us a long way down the road and makes the second day much shorter.

The friendly moose statue outside Moose Jaw.

Rouleau, Sk, aka 'Dog River' from the popular TV sitcom Corner Gas. The show has quite filming and the sets have all been removed. Just the elevator remains with the Dog River name on it.

Lots of pumping oil wells in Southern Saskatchewan.

It's not uncommon to find a cluster of four to six in the same yard.

Lots of towns have statues greeting visitors at their outskirts. Some are historical in nature......

......and others are just for fun.

My hometown of Deloraine.

Our next stop was my hometown of Deloraine, Manitoba. I have family and friends there and it's been a long time since we spent more just a few hours visiting. We pulled in at my cousin's farmyard and set up the trailer. A convenient location just a mile from town and 30 amp power! We had great visits and enjoyed driving some of the old roads and haunts from years ago.

We drove out to Lake Metigoshe where I spent a lot of weekends when I was younger. The lake straddles the Manitoba / North Dakota border.

Lots of big homes on the lake. Not the small cabins of yesteryear.

Pretty yellow lillies.

Fun rural roads.

The guard goat at my cousin's farm.

Downtown Deloraine.

Too soon it was time to head out for Winnipeg. We arrived Thursday, July 26 and left two weeks later on August 9. So what do you do in Winnipeg for two weeks? We have large families and each day we spent there was another visit with family or friends. We enjoyed each visit. We also made time to visit those that have passed, as their memory is important to sustain.

Another statue. This one is a turtle welcoming you to Boissevain, MB.

We spent a day near Gimli, MB. This is Lake Winnipeg. It's a biggie!

Not a mushroom cloud, just a prairie shower.

Lots of sunflower fields in southern Manitoba.

The Winnipeg Floodway. It helps control the Red River during springtime high water.

Beer store in the French part of the City.

Downtown Winnipeg

The Burton Cummings Theater, named after the proud Winnipeger.
Winnipeg was home the famous rock band The Guess Who.

We stayed at the Town and Country Campground in the southeast corner of the city. We've stayed here a few times and although not the best campground around it is a convenient location. It seems their priorities are a bit mixed up. Their plans for a swimming pool have been shelved, which is fine by me, but now simple maintenance items are being overlooked. The same washers and driers that were broken last year are still broken and the same potholes and mud bogs are still on the roads. This is a family run operation and we wish them well, but they need to focus on the simple things. Their first year running the campground was spent running the mower over the grass several times a week it seemed. This trip I never saw the mower once. I guess the novelty wore off. Their next big project is installing automated gates at the entrance. Again, this isn't a bad thing, but I sure wish they'd keep up with maintenance as their first priority.

So we said goodbye to Manitoba for this year. We had lots of fun and got caught up with everyone.

Up next? How about Ottawa, Montreal, Quebec City and eventually Halifax? Yep, big road trip. Stay tuned!

Beautiful sunset over Winnipeg.

....and that was Our View From Here!