Week ending Aug 2

Tuesday morning we left the KOA in Thunder Bay by 7:15 and headed west. Our destination unknown. We stopped at Kakabeka Falls Provincial Park to view the falls.

The most noteworthy event of today was that we stopped for diesel at Upsala, a full service Shell station and paid 1.499 per litre for diesel. The most we have paid per litre this entire trip. Later in the day at Kenora we paid 1.219 per litre at a Husky full service. We pay what we have to. Sometimes you just don't have a choice, the truck and trailer are just too heavy to push to the next station with cheaper diesel. After we stopped for diesel Joan moved john's glasses to the console between the seats in the front of the truck and they disappeared. We looked for the next 300 or so km trying to find them, with no luck. After we parked for the night, John emptied the truck and lo and behold his glasses were under the passenger seat. Along the road today we saw 2 very pretty deer, we have seem surprisingly few animals this trip, but it has been very warm so I guess they are in the trees, keeping cool.

Tuesday night we pulled into West Hawk Lake campground at Whiteshell Provincial Park in Manitoba. What a place to camp. We were able to get a site for 2 nights large enough, but they are booked from then on. We only had electricity, so will be conserving water. The good news is that it is very economical. The Manitoba Provincial parks must really be encouraging people to use them, as they are not charging entrance fees and the camp fees are unbelievably low.

Wednesday morning we picked up some maps to add to the information we had received the evening before and headed out to Bannock Point Pertroforms.

We were lucky enough to speak to a native person who told us a bit about them and where to find the majority of them that we had missed. Petroforms are rock formations at least 1500 years old and are sacred places to the Natives. After a lunch break beside Dorothy Lake we did the McGillivray Falls hike. The trail leads to McGillivray Lake and is part of the Trans Canada Trail.  While we where on the trail and John was doing the trail finding his comment was "where in blue blazes are we?" Pretty obvious don't you think?

Thursday was a travel day. We stopped in Portage La Prairie at the travel information to find out if Spruce Wood Provincial Park had any full service campsites available for the next couple of days. Their RV sites were flooded early this year and have not yet recovered. They had some sites with 15 amp power, no water or sewer. They were not sure that the sites they had available would be large enough for us. As a result we passed on that park. We ended up at Shady Oaks for the night. It is beside the highway, has water and electric and a heated pool. After getting set up and determining that the wi-fi they advertised (and that you pay the third party for on-line) doesn't work, we went for a swim and called it a day. After dinner we were sitting playing games on our computers and Joan looked up to see the tail end of Eagle (by Jayco) 5th wheel less than a meter from the window. The people had backed in on an angle and had missed our slider by a good 2 feet. This is the coziest campground experience we've had. A short while after our neighbours got settled, there was a knock on our door. People from a trailer in a site on the other side, with another trailer between us wanted to let us know they would be leaving early the next morning, because their truck and trailer where long enough that they were blocking us in. Their plan was to be on the road by 8:00 A.M. That is about the time we usually leave, so the fact they are blocking us in isn't a big deal.

Friday we arrived at the KOA in Indian Head. Karen and Dominique came out from Regina for dinner and a visit. After they left, a brutal thunderstorm went through. It was really shaking the travel. Our power went off about 1:00 A.M. When we got up just after 7:00 A.M. we still had no power. When speaking to other people in the campground, their power was out as well. We hadn't bothered with our awning, as a result it is still in tact. Many others are in shreds. Our satellite dish was blown over, but undamaged. Other had their satellite dishes broken, so they had to replace them. There were several large trees down in the campground, but luckily no trailers were damaged. The most interesting event was a large bale from the hay field behind the campground ended up in the sitting area a group was using the evening before. Can you imagine their surprise when they opened their door in the morning to be nose to nose with a giant hay bale?

We spent Saturday in Regina at Karen's, doing our laundry while helping her do yard work. We made two flower beds out of bricks as well as tore apart her old fence and gate, so that it is ready for disposal. After a rib dinner we came back to the campground, set up the satellite dish so we could watch the Sask vs Calgary football game.

Sunday morning we moved from the Indian Head KOA to Kings Acre Campground just inside the Regina City limits. It is an okay campground and more convenient for us to visit with Karen. Karen and Dominique came out to the trailer for lunch and dinner. We didn't do much because it was a very hot day. Our truck said it was 35 degrees C with not a breath of air. Eventually we went over to the local WalMart, just because it is air-conditioned and we needed cooling down. After wandering around (and picking up a few items) we stopped at McDonald's for a milkshake, then came back to the trailer, eventually barbequed chicken and called it a day. At 9:00 it was still 85 degrees in the trailer so we sat outside waiting for the trailer to cool off. When we got up at 8:00 this morning it was 64 degrees in the trailer. What a difference 12 hours make. I wish we could have bottled some of that cool temperature.

Monday morning we picked Karen and Dominique up and went out to Regina Beach for a picnic lunch. The water is still really high and the beach area is still flooded.  

After lunch we wandered down the beach for a bit, and then came back to Regina and went to the Sandra Schmirler pool for a swim. We dropped Karen and Dominique at home after dinner at Chili's.