July 13-14 to Maple Creek, SK

It’s Sunday, July 13, and Jack and I find ourselves in Saskatchewan. We buzzed right through Alberta today (which was no great loss as it is nearly as flat as a pancake and almost as interesting) and are now on the western-most edge of SK. The plains here are untreed and, save for a few lazy hills, flat ranch land. As luck would have it, we found a very cool little campground that is not only populated with mature deciduous greenery, but appointed with a laundry facility, a small store, a lovely reception area, and something that they euphemistically call a “pool” (a dirt hole filled with water.) We are under the shade of one of these ash-like beauties near a clean and private bathroom and far enough from the freeway to feel unthreatened every time we hear a semi approach. Life is good.

Tomorrow, we head further eastward. We haven’t discussed our plan for the exact route yet, but will begin along Route 1. We may dip down into the U.S. somewhere along the line in the next day or so, but haven’t decided for sure.

I hope you’ve enjoyed the slide shows. I realize yesterday’s was a bit of an epic, but we had to whittle what we included from the nearly 700 that we took, so choosing only 50 was a task. There wasn’t much to speak of in the way of scenery today, although I will include a slide show (hopefully) tomorrow when we have a strong I’net connection. We need to venture into “town” to find one tonight as the camp’s has been “sent out for repair.” (What the HECK does THAT mean?) Anyway, we will be in touch soon – you do the same.

July 14 – 9:30 a.m. Well, the travelers’ aide place had less than wonderful Internet last night and the battery went dead on my computer, so I just figured I’d make this post this morning. Between that time and right now, we managed to have another little adventure.

We met a terrific family who live in Brooks, SK and were invited to join them at their campfire last night. We’d gotten about an hour and a half into our visit when a rather spectacular light show began in the sky – lightning like CRAZY. That kept up for about a half hour before the wind started. Les, the father of this family we were with, is a farmer and was able to read this weather pretty well. He got up to get some water to douse the campfire and, before he could get back, the sparks started flying and the wind got strong enough to start blowing things off the table. We got back to our site, picked up some of the things that had blown around and secured ourselves in the camper. The canvass billowed and blew and puffed in hard, but held up WONDERFULLY. We were legitimately concerned for a while there – the manager of the camp came around to warn us to take cover if things got bad as Weather Channel predictions were calling for 60 mph winds, but we never had to resort to that. We climbed in under the electric blanket, snuggled up, and held on. Yee-HAA!

We are aiming southeast this morning, final destination to be determined by when our energy runs out J I’ll try to blog from there.

Much love,
L