An Ill Wind

It was windy... very windy... and rainy most of the day today, so we were going for two indoor attractions. The morning was good, but the afternoon was a disaster.

Despite the gales and downpours, we had a nice visit at the Daly house museum. It was the home of Brandon's first mayor, Thomas Daly II, and has been done up with all period furnishings and appointments, many from the original home.

After lunch, we headed to Souris, about a half hour away, to see Canada's longest swinging bridge, and another museum, a castle-like structure built in 1904. And Souris is where the wheels fell off.

When I asked directions to the bridge, the City Hall lady looked blankly at me and said "It's down". "Down where?" I asked. Turns out they cut it down during the flood of 2011 for fear that the surging river would tear out its moorings and the wall that protected the town. Then it turned out that the museum wasn't open until July. But I have pictures of the attractions that weren't... here's what the bridge (or its present state of reconstruction) looks like now...

...and here's the outside of the museum that we would have toured...

But we had two more disappointments yet. Barb tried to get some money from a Credit Union, but they claimed that they didn't recognize her card and directed her to a Royal Bank ATM (Hm... whatever happened to "ding free"?).

And then when I tried to find a cache outside the castle on a display train, I came up empty. It didn't help that I couldn't tell which end was the back (where the magnetic key holder was supposed to be). I searched both ends anyway in the (by now) drizzle, but no go... small consolation that several logs commented on the difficulty of the hide.

...so we came away from Souris with me cacheless and Barb cashless. Oh well, we treated ourselves to apple cinnamon tea and a treat at the local tea house so the afternoon wasn't a complete write off.

Tomorrow we're off to Moosejaw and the weather report is looking much better.

Brandon

Our westward return trek has begun. We followed the same route that we'd already travelled from Sioux Narrows to Winnipeg, but then took a more southerly branch and are spending a couple of nights in Brandon. The prairie wind that we experienced on the way out is with us again, but accompanied this time by fairly consistent rain. It rained all day for the drive, and is still coming down steadily. The rain must have been following us, because when we pulled into the park, it was barely drizzling, but now between Barb's spot and mine are several lakes to traverse.

I was happy to find that there is a cache in the park here, not 150 feet from where my lot is, so I was able to get it logged without me getting waterlogged. A nice sized one, too, and I was able to exchange travellers.

We stopped for lunch at a convenient side road along the way, and realized as we pulled away back onto the highway that we'd just happened to lunch at the longitudinal centre of Canada!

Tomorrow's activities will be dictated by the weather (more rain is forecast). We have both indoor and outdoor activities from which to choose.

Sioux Narrows

We had a nice quiet day today. Poked around the Trading Post this morning in town, and a couple of gift stores. Here's a selection of images that'll give you the flavour of the town...

Yes, Tourist Central. Everybody is very friendly, it isn't quite the start of the tourist season yet, so they're bracing for the onslaught.

After a relaxed lunch, Barb and I went in search of a cache at Nestor Falls, about 1/2 hour south, while Kim just kicked back and chilled. The "falls" is more like a spillway, as you can see...

I found the cache pretty quickly, exchanged some trackables, and we headed back. The country here is very reminiscient of some parts of northern B.C. and we had a most enjoyable afternoon drive.

As the sun slid below the horizon, we toasted our turning around with the last bottle in existence of the Bearsted Manor 2011 vintage Shiraz/Zinfandel blend. Tomorrow we set our sights westward toward Brandon. 

Turning Point

We've reached our furthest point East, after which we'll be turning around and heading Westward again. But before we do, we have a full day to spend in the peaceful tranquility of Sioux Narrows, Ontario.

We made a couple of stops along our way here, both for caches. The first was an Earthcache (caches that demonstrate geoscience features) at the Keewatin Rockholes, which reminded me of the Sooke Potholes, but these ones are much deeper (up to 7 feet).

They were formed by meltwater streams and stones swirling around under the glacier that covered the continent some 18,000 years ago. And that's granite, not sandstone!

A few miles out of town, there was a rest stop at a place called Bunny Lake, so in honour of Barb's cat Bunny, we just had to make a pit stop there. There was a cache there, too.  :-)

The resort here is quite secluded, and extremely quiet, tucked well away from any traffic right beside Lake of the Woods. It's too bad we only have one day here.

Here are Barb and Kim chillin' at one of the lakeside settin' spots.

Somebody with a sense of humour turned a stump into an art work...

... and it looks like there are other bears in the area...

Those signs are on the same RV (park model), one at the front and the other at the back.

Lower Fort Garry

After a bit of shopping in the morning, we spent a delightful afternoon trooping around the Lower Fort Garry National Historic Site. There was a five stage puzzle cache inside the fort, so naturally I (and Barb) had to indulge. A bit of shortcutting was required. One stage was confusing and another stage was illegible (we had to read a carving in a stone wall). However, we managed to piece it all together, and locate and log the final.

Along the way, we saw many interesting sights. This one had us "talking like pirates"... and no doubt amusing the passersby...

There are numerous park staff in all the buildings on site dressed in period costume and acting assigned roles, ala Barkerville. We had some nice chats with some of them, and learned that they were mostly university students who were lucky enough to find work that complemented their career paths.

This part of Canada, and most of the West, was purchased from the Hudson Bay Company, who had first claimed it all.

The very first aboriginal treaty (Treaty #1 - now controversial) was enacted here in 1871. Here's a shot of a teepee in the background of the blacksmith shop.

Later, we visited an Earthcache for my collection, this one was in Oak Hammock Marsh, and taught us all about artesian wells.

Tonight we're treating ourselves to dinner out at THE (only) local Île-des-Chênes eatery, and  tomorrow we head to our turning-around spot, Sioux Narrows ON. It'll be a short driving day (3.25 hrs), so we'll have a chance to see some sights (and caches <hehheh>) along the way.

BTW, there's an interesting background on how Île-des-Chênes was named... Google it...

Friendly Manitoba

Another Provincial border (and another time zone) crossed. The good news is that the internet here is very good, but the bad news is that it wasn't a very eventful day to report on, as it was mostly "hands on the wheel, eyes on the road ahead". We rolled into our camp site with enough time to spare for me to dash out and get my daily cache before hunkering down for Miller time and dinner.

I realize that I forgot to relate the end of the tire saga, though. When I took it into the tire shop for repair, they declared that the tire was no good, and pointed out a sidewall bulge that indicated belt damage. I had to buy a whole new tire.  :-(  But that isn't the end of the story just yet... during today's travel I had to refill it, so it may be losing air again, I'll have to take it into a shop here in the morning for them to look at once more. It might even be the tire pressure monitoring valve on it I suppose... what a drag. Oh well, that's what adventures are all about, eh?

Ticks seem to be an epidemic, though. With all the bushwhacking I do in B.C., I've never seen one of the little parasites. Among the three of us (and DeeOhGee), we've managed to pick up about a dozen since crossing into Saskatchewan. The campground manager here says he thinks this is the worst year yet for them, and global warming may be playing a part in their migration from the East.

Tomorrow we have a full day's outing planned if the weather cooperates (it's quite warm and muggy now, with possible thundershowers in the outlook). There are a couple of interesting parks and possibly the Mint...

Prairie Schooner

We have internet now, but only by sitting outside the campground office. Here's where we've been over the past few days:

Here's a shot of some mini houses I saw beside the Glowing Embers campground in Acheson (I forgot to add it fofr the Acheson post). There was no sign to indicate what they were for, perhaps they're going to add wheels and market them as economy RVs?  :-)

We arrived at the Saskatoon campground on Wednesday to quite a stiff breeze. Because of this, and the resultant swaying of all the trees, the wifi was pretty much unusable (seems to be the common denominator on this trip). Throughout our stay, the wind only let up late at night.

We're into our "drive every other day" schedule now. We decided to spend the day here wandering the trails of the Meewasin River, and caught some caches while we were there (of course). Here's a shot of one of the typical trails we enjoyed.

Barbara was quite interested in all the pelicans that were in the river, and roosting on an island in the middle. We got several pix, but of course they were on the camera, not the phone (camera has 20x zoom), so I can't upload them yet. Here's a pic of the spillway, though, which gives a sense of the width of the river.

A little way upstream we came across a paddlewheeler.

We would have gone for a trip, but its sailings were going to be too late for us. Next time. It reminded me of the paddlewheeler in New Orleans that I didn't go on, either.  :-)

One of the caches we found was in the middle (literally) of a stone sculpture at the foot of a bridge. Yes, it was actually =in= the sculpture, not under it! It took us a few minutes to find this one, the camouflage was so good. And the whole time we had to pretend to be admiring the work rather than searching for something (in it for the art, not the cache) so as not to attract muggles (non game players who sometimes vandalize caches).

On Friday morning, we pushed off for Yorkton SK. It was the shortest drive so far, only 3.5 hours, but we stopped for picnic along the way. It's a city run campground, and as I said at the top, we have to sit outside the tiny office to get wifi (and then it is S-L-O-W). We're spoiled at home with our high speed I think.

Today (Saturday), we had a nice long walk around the lake that we're camped beside, and picked up a cache on a spit of land that sticks out into the lake. After lunch, we toured a local museum that was very interesting. Kim especially enjoyed the farm machinery scattered around the grounds.

I thought that second one, the combine, looked like a giant insect.

Tomorrow we head off to a suburb of Winnipeg, Ile Des Chenes.