Saskatche-whaaaaat!

Wednesday, June 23rd, 2010

START:  Winnipeg, MB - 10:15 a.m.

STOP:  King's Acres Campground, Regina, SK - 7:00 p.m.

WEATHER:  Sunny/humid with sporadic downpours and apparently a big-ass thunderstorm over night that only Dad heard.  Suspicious.

Ben left this morning around 8 a.m. to catch his flight at 9 a.m. and once we were all showered and ready to go, it was on the road againnnn.  Prairie traveling definitely makes for some good snoozin' time, as I feel the picture above demonstrates quite nicely.  Such sights and sounds!  Imagine if I had missed that.  Also, apparently coffee cream is a blasphemous item in the flat lands as we have not been able to find any anywhere since leaving Winnipeg.  "Sorry, we're all out.  Tomorrow is dairy day."  Allllrighty then.  We just passed 93 cows, but that's fine.  And long gone are the days of deer and moose crossing.  We're in elk territory now.  None spotted yet, though - alive OR dead.

Today marked a rite of passage in my life as Paw finally pulled over and let me captain the ship we call Beula for an entire 40 minutes until a storm started to rage and I was almost blown into the ditch by one mother a-hole of a trucker.  Aside from that, I did pretty well and managed to keep her in the lane the whole time without eliciting the bellowing roar of the rumble strip on the side of the road.  We crossed the border into Saskatchewan around 3:15 p.m. and somewhere along the way gained another hour, now putting us two ahead of home time.  The ride was pretty uneventful for the most part.  Mike enjoyed a snack of peanut butter on a spoon while Mom caught some shut eye and I pored over maps in the front seat.  We eventually stopped in Indian Head, SK to fill up before tracking down Katepwa Point Provincial Park, which we thought would be our stop for the night (more on that later).  We almost made off without paying for our gas and Mike wanted to "pump and scram" - hahaha - but of course, we didn't.  So after asking the friendly gas attendant how to get to this provincial park, we drove for over an hour (so much for gaining time) down some winding, narrow road only to be told that NO, SORRY, YOU CAN'T CAMP HERE EVEN THOUGH IT SAYS YOU CAN ON THE MAP AND WE ALSO HAVE A CAMPING SYMBOL ON OUR SIGN.  I guess ol' gas pumper thought we just wanted to go park somewhere for an hour in our MOTORHOME.  Thanks for the tip.

We eventually stopped for the night 1km east of Regina at an RV park called King's Acres Campground where RVs are crammed one next to the other like sardines, with no lake and no fires allowed.  Oh, and they have seasonal campers.  Why you would want to spend your whole summer in a place like this is beyond me, but God bless.  We performed the ritual Shower of Sadness, where Mike pointed out that the area was under surveillance so that no passersby could "dump and scram."  So after finally finding a home for the night, we whipped up a delicious din of burgers, pasta, and salad, and Mom set off to do some more laundry - and then returned 10 minutes  later after not being able to find her way in the cozy little maze that was King's Acres Campground, haha.  She eventually tracked'er down and Dad and Mike were even able to rig us two whole channels to choose from on the TV.  The night ended in a frantic search for Dad's missing spectacles to no avail.

Stay tuned to find out how this developing story unfolds.

Letting the good times roll,