Edmonton - Winnipeg - Lower 48

From Edmonton we needed to decide if we would travel the shortest route back to the lower 48, straight south to Montana, or go through Winnipeg.  Going through Montana added 325 miles to the trip to WashPA, an extra day of driving.  Going through Winnipeg made the trip shorter, but it meant more miles in Canada and one last topping off with more expensive Canadian fuel.  By going through Winnipeg we would also get to see friends, so that option won out.  What's a few more dollars for fuel after a summer of high prices, right?  It was another three day's drive covering the 850 miles to Winnipeg.  On day one we stayed at Wally World in Saskatoon and the second night we found a free community RV park in Russell, Manitoba. These free stops helped ease the pain of the higher fuel costs.

Just outside of Edmonton we saw a few buffalo at Elk Island National Park.  Maybe our last look at big animals along the road.

We drove many miles with rain and threatening weather.  Check it out, they even cut and bale the grass in the median.

The fields were alive with the color of the canola plants in bloom.

We lost track of how many grain elevators we saw.  You can tell when you were approaching a town when an elevator comes into view.

There were thousands of ducks that were enjoying all the water from the record rainfall.  The water was very close to the highway in several places.

More roadside oddities that welcomed us to many small towns.  The bicycle is the world's longest.

There is a large Eastern European population in the prairie.  This old Orthodox church reminded us of ones we had seen in Alaska.  

When traveling in farm country you never know what you will encounter on the road.

While there are no soaring mountains the plains have there own unique beauty.

We met Gary and Anita at Betty's in 2008 and have seen them a few times since on our travels.  We only got to spend a couple of days with them as we were on a mission to get back to WashPA.  We had a fun time as they showed us around Winnipeg.

We went to the Forks, an area along the river with shops, restaurants, and walking trails.  The water taxi was operating even with the high water.

A neat display of several sculptures with each pointing to a different constellations or other celestial event like the equinox and solstice.  Stories about each were carved into the stone. 

When we were here two years ago the new Human Rights Museum was under construction.  The exterior is now complete and it will be opening next month.  Something to add to our to do list for another visit.

We got together for a toddy with Gary and Anita, and Marcel and Sonya, who we met in Alaska and who also live in Winnipeg.  We had a fun time getting caught up with all our travel adventures.  As we say many times, making and seeing friends along the way is the best part of the fulltiming lifestyle.

Back to the lower 48.  87 days after crossing into Canada from Montana we crossed into North Dakota and are still 1350 miles from WashPA.  Unfortunately, they confiscated many of our veggies, even the cherry tomatoes that Gary and Anita gave us that day fresh off the vine.  Such a pity, we were soooo looking forward to those:-(   On the bright side, all in all it was a fantastic experience and we are looking forward to spending time with family and friends before heading off on our next adventure.

Friends in Two Countries

We were only about 100 miles from Winnipeg where our fulltiming friends Gary and Anita lived and now spend the summers.  Heading north again would give us a the chance to have personal tour guides of the city and to add Manitoba and Ontario to our travel map.  Our first order of business was to fuel up as diesel was about $4.60 in Manitoba and well over $5.00 in Ontario.  That makes the $3.75 we paid in North Dakota sound pretty good.   

Gary, Nanc, Anita and Jim after a great meal and an evening of catching up on our travel adventures since we last saw them at Betty's in the fall of 2008.  Once again meeting friends on the road is one of the high points of our traveling lifestyle.

HAPPY 1st of July!!! 

Not the 4th, they were celebrating Canada Day with all the usual fireworks and hoopla as our Independence Day.  We are so far north that it did not get dark enough for the fireworks to begin until 11PM.  Most stores, including grocery stores, were closed or had limited hours so their employees could join the festivities.  A novel idea by US standards.

We toured the Royal Canadian Mint in Winnipeg where the have made coins for over seventy countries represented by the flags.  They even made pennies for the United States in the 1990's.  They use a new technique that lowered the cost of making a penny to less than 1/2 a cent. Since then the cost has risen to 1.5 cents so in May they minted the last penny.  They join Australia which has eliminated the penny and the nickle while the US spends six cents to make a coin that many people literally throw away.  Go Figure. 

Here we are checking out our weight in gold and the Olympic medals from the Vancouver games that were minted here.  This year is the 25th anniversary of the Canadian dollar coin that is called the loonie because of the loon pictured on it.  It was so popular that they now make a two dollar coin which everyone calls the toonie.  The whole process, from cutting blanks to stamping coins to packaging, was very interesting but no pictures were allowed.

Gary and Anita took us to The Forks where the Assiniboine and Red Rivers meet.  There is a walking trail and park all along the banks.  The Red flows north out of the US and has flooded many times.  They said we were lucky because last year at this time all this was under water.  The polar bear statues were part of an exhibit of painted bears the city sponsored. 

The Fork includes the historic port that is used by pleasure boats today, a marketplace and the new Humanitarian Museum a unique looking building which is still under construction.  We were surprised at how hot and humid it was.  Temps can range from highs near 40 in the summer to -40 in the winter.

Winnipeg has a very large French speaking population and the neighbourhood around Saint Boniface Cathedral is largely French.  The cathedral was built in 1905 and burned in 1968 leaving only the facade (left), the sacristy (right) and part of the walls.  Rather than rebuild in the old style, a new modern building was constructed where the sanctuary was and connected to the sacristy.  It makes for a very interesting building.  The grave stone marks the burial site of Louis Riel, the founder of Manitoba and the leader of the Metis people.  The Metis were the mix of the early French and First Nation people.  We had a great time in Winnipeg and loved having Gary and Anita as personal tour guides.  I am sure we will see them again somewhere down the road.

We moved on to Fort Frances where we slept in the Wally World parking lot so we could add Ontario to our map.  It was the Fourth of July and while we could not really see them, we could hear the celebration fireworks across the river in Minnesota.  This was another stop on our Travel Back in Time tour as we stayed here two nights on our '82 bicycle trek.  The paper mill is significant because we remembered how bad it smelled.  We were glad the wind was blowing the smell away this time.

  We had contacted Dave and Sarah before entering Canada because we knew they lived in Minnesota, but we were not sure where.  Initially, it did not look like we would cross paths but when I check my email (in Canada we had Verizon coverage near the border) we learned we would be passing through Cloquet, Minnesota at the same time.  We agreed to meet at Wally World and arrived within minutes of each other.  We had a nice lunch together, shared a few tales and were on our separate ways.  Once again it is so neat getting to see friends on the road.