Trans Can to Van: Day 4: August 2, 2010

Day 4: August 2, 2010

Winnipeg showed us a lovely evening of blogging and taking in the City nightscape from my brother’s balcony. Having crawled into the ‘Peg under pouring rain, flooded streets, and a sky lit up with sheets of lightening, we were more than happy to take up David’s offer a place to crash and have a hot shower.

Thanks to Smith’s sense of Canadiana and appreciation for history, we made the 2 block trek from David’s apartment to the Manitoba legislature this morning. Between the photo shoots with Louis Riel and Queen Vicky, and handstands on the manicured lawn, it was “a good stop to make,” just as the TripAdvisor website promised in its “Things to do in Winnipeg.”

We were back on the road by 12:00pm, showing little improvement in our ability to “hit the road by 8am, like real adventurers” (according to Grandpa Gibbs). Worse still, we hadn’t yet looked at a single real map of Winnipeg. We were completely relying on the Gremlin, who has been known to have us turn left, only to direct us to turn left twice more in a 1 block radius. As we get into the car, “Next stop? Vancouver!”

Freshly showered (“Ya guys, like, we’re clean enough that could go into a restaurant right now,” says Smith) we did make our way out of Winnipeg and it’s Bluebomber donuts. Mos Def and K’naan are now keeping us an intimidating-looking bunch as we transition into the prairie landscape of Manitoba. Smith taught us all about Stephen Hawking’s most recent theories, Storm told a mediocre Scottish-at-the-bar joke, and we all agreed life is better without a car (except when you’re driving it across your country.)

We’re relieved to see an end to the Ontario-wide religious billboard campaign. They seemed to pop up every 150-200km. As yet another biblical highway preaching appeared on the horizon, Smith joked in a cheery voice “And what message does Jesus have for us today?”

The Saturn has been a real doll so far- not a problem to speak of, despite the fact that we celebrated her 300,000th birthday today. Smack dab in the highway-heart of Brandon, Manitoba, 299,999km rolls over and the 300,000 party began (conveniently right in a rest station parking lot). It’s like the Saturn wanted us to celebrate in true westerner tailgating style.

Back on the road, we’re creeping up on another prairie storm. Just as we were entering Manitoba, Smith says “I really hope we see a prairie rainstorm.” Within hours it was pouring and the sky lit with lightening as we arrived in Winnipeg. After that he says, “Well this is cool, but it would be great to see one in the daytime.” En route to Saskatoon via Regina, we just hit with another downpour, distracting us from the “Welcome to Saskatchewan” sign. We’ll have to rely on the locals to make us feel welcome instead.

We pulled into the sprawling city of Regina and headed straight for the Saskatchewan legislature- another grandiose building, easily one-upping Queen’s Park. Too impatient to wait for a tour (Saskatchewan is apparently more restrictive about their legislative building access policies than Manitoba), we strolled the front gardens instead. Sitting at the head of the long garden was a statue of Queen Lizzy, riding atop Burmese, her favourite horse. If you’re in the market for a quality horse, worthy of Royal preference, head to Fort Grey, Saskatchewan. Burmese was born and raised in Fort Grey and was presented to the Queen by the RCMP in 1969.

Our Gremlin took us next to the Rough Ryders territory- seemingly not the best part of town, but an awesome stadium to see. Plunked down in the middle of an industrial yard and bordered by questionable housing, the stadium towers over its neighbourhood. Pulling out of the empty stadium lot, we came to a stop sign where an older woman, easily in her 90’s, waved us through from her gold 80’s Cadillac, adorned with a flashy Ryder’s licence plate. What we saw of Regina was pretty and quiet, but I can’t say that I’m surprised to see the community rally around something so passionately- Regina didn’t appear to have much else going for it.

While texting with friends living in Saskatchewan to arrange a provincial-visit rendezvous, we noticed that our phones were now an hour forward.

“Did we just cross another time zone?” I ask. “There was no sign....?”

Smith and Storm checked their phones, and since all of our phones showed it being an hour earlier, we decided it must be.

With growling stomachs at 8pm, we made a fly-by decision to stop in Craik Municipal Park and Campground, in Craik, Saskatchewan. Veering off the long, straight highway 1, we were sceptical of seeing a “park” pop up somewhere along this seemingly infinite horizon. Buried in a small valley amongst some sparse shrubbery, the teen-aged girl working the camp “gatehouse” saunters over to our car, “Hi. What can I do for you?” she asks.

“Hey, we were looking to cook up some dinner and maybe go for a dip and then get back on the road again,” says Smith.

“Ok, it’ll be $5 for a day pass,” she replies.

Still sceptical of there being a naturally-occurring body of water nearby this park plunked down in the middle of prairie fields, I interject,

“For the swimming, it’s not like a pool, is it?”

“Ah yes, it’s a pool,” she says, confirming my suspicion.

Hunger prevailed. We were cooking the dogs- lake to swim in or not.

“Have you been here before?”she then asks.

“Ah, no, no we haven’t.”

I developed a newfound appreciation for the prairie life as we enjoyed grilled dogs with the golden summer sun setting and the endless stretch of fields. Stopping to use the washroom on our way out, we came across the ‘pool,’ a dark brown blob-shaped concrete basin. And it would cost $4 to swim.

We’re enjoying the famed prairie sunset to some classic Hip tunes, discussing the difference in deer warning signs from province to province,

“Ontario’s is prancing, Manitoba’s has antlers and is charging, and Saskatchewan’s is somewhere in between,” concludes Storm.

“So Bonita,” Storm says, “Has the day lived up to your anticipation and excitement from this morning?”

Reflecting on the happy-go-luckyness of a day crossing two provinces, with spectacular scenery, new cities, and ever-changing weather, I can’t say I was disappointed.

“I’m normally a big time planner. So this going somewhere with no real immediate plan stuff is new to me, but I like it,” I say, to which Storm replied,

“ If you don’t have somewhere to be, you can never be late.”