Road Trip Day 6: Regina to Calgary

With the drive from Regina to Calgary being fairly long we decided to get moving at a decent hour this morning in order to arrive in Calgary in time for dinner at my Uncle Jon and Aunt Leanna’s house.  As per usual when my alarm went off I didn’t want to wake up but I had to get out of bed because I had plugged my phone in across the room. 

Sarah was a little more insistent on not getting up than I was so Cam piled pillows on top of her.  Apparently when they were housemates this is something Cam and their other housemates did to Sarah more than a couple times.  I thought it was pretty funny.

Sarah's under there.. somewhere.

As whole I felt like today’s drive was long.  Time seemed to drag by.   Hopefully the same won’t happen again tomorrow since our drive will be 4-5 hours longer.

The most memorable moment in today’s journey was when we met a father and son who picked up a hawk from the highway.  Here is Sarah’s account of the experience:

“Today 23 km east of Piapot, Saskatchewan we met the most adorable father - son duo of road kill collectors.

This is how it happened...  We stopped for a quick highway side break. Then I noticed a dead hawk in the middle of the road. I started taking pictures of it. Then a big dirty pickup truck pulled over. Out stepped a man wearing an army print hunting cap and vest, foo man choo and cowboy boots. A boy whose baggy cropped jeans were held up by a shoestring jumped out of the passenger seat to check out the hawk that was now in his dad's arms.

The excited pair noticed I was taking pictures of them and walked the hawk over to our van. They told up that this was the best one they have found in a while. Given that the bird was in perfect condition, except it's feet we're burnt.  They think she was electrocuted.

The father said they we going to rush home and put the bird on ice, then take it over to the taxidermist. There they would pick a pose, likely with the wigs expanded, and have it freeze dried. Then they would mount it in their living room with he rest of their collection.”

Other highlights of today’s journey… We experienced bright sunshine, torrential rain and everything in between, we stopped for some delicious frozen treats from DQ, I tried to sleep in the van for the first time this trip– the results were poor, and we encountered real traffic for the first time while entering Calgary.

We arrived at Uncle Jon and Aunt Leanna around 5:40pm, which was perfect timing since Uncle Jon gets home at 5:30.  They had prepared a lovely turkey dinner for us.  It was really nice to visit with them and catch up. Uncle Jon and Aunt Leanna are my godparents and actually my name was derived from a combination of their names Jo from Jon, anna from Leanna and add an h for good measure - Johanna.  Sadly I don’t get to see them very often and it has been a really long time since I last visited them in Calgary.  Maybe now that I no longer live in Ottawa I might get to see them more often.

After dinner we went for a nice stroll around their quaint neighbourhood.  It was nice to be out in the fresh air after spending almost all day in Stan the van.  When we returned we did the dishes and then Barb, Cam, Sarah and I played a game called Citadels.  I had never played before but I enjoyed it.  It is quite a strategic game but there is some luck involved.  Cam ended up winning.  He beat Sarah by one point.  She wasn’t too happy about that.

Below are some of the random pictures I took throughout the day.  Check them out.

Reflections are fun things to play with!

We only killed a few bugs along the way..

Sarah making a phone call right before the hawk incident

Straddling the border between Saskatchewan and Alberta

This little guy was munching on the grass in Jon and Leanna's front yard

Road Trip Day 5: Winnipeg to Regina

For the first time in quite some time I went to church.  Since Cam’s place of residence, our accommodation for the night, doubles as his church it only made sense that we’d go the Sunday morning service.  I enjoyed the experience for the most part.  The music/worship was really well done but as a whole the service felt really long – nearly two hours.

I only ate an apple before the service since I was slow moving this morning and so by the end of the service I was starving.  When I get really hungry I also tend to get a headache.  Let’s just say I wasn’t feeling so awesome, which was ironic since Barb and Sarah were all better.

For lunch we went to eat at a place in Winnipeg called the Forks.  It had a similar feel to Granville Island but instead of being on the oceanfront it was located at the fork between the two rivers that run through the city.

After eating we checked out the rivers.  There we came across some Canadian geese, which Sarah had a fun time imitating.

Before setting out for the day Cam and Barb grabbed some candy from Sugar Mountain.  It wasn’t in its typical bulk candy store form but rather had more prepackaged candy and was located inside an old railway car.

We stopped by the national car rental place at the airport before leaving the city to add Cam as an additional driver on the rental agreement.  I think Barb and Sarah have enjoyed driving thus far but were happy to have another person to share the driving duties.

Not too far outside of the city I began to get bored by the rather flat scenery.  I was ready to write the Prairies off altogether, believing it to be a dull and ugly place.  I posted as much on Facebook too.  But I was wrong.

Shortly after I posted that negative status the weather, which up until then was kind of yucky, cleared up.  The clouds caught hold of my attention and held on to it.  I grabbed my phone to delete my status only to watch my phone lose its 3G network, followed closely by all its bars.  I once again had no service.

With no other distraction I spent the next few hours staring at the clouds.  I took a fair amount of pictures trying to capture their beauty but I feel like I failed.  They are still decent pictures though.

The GPS went a little crazy again!

The drive as a whole today was very chill and relaxed.  I spent most of my time thinking while staring at the clouds and participating in conversations every now and again.  The only one that sticks out right now is an argument between Cam and I about whether or not the p in the Prairies should be capitalized.  After a surprisingly long debate, for such a minor detail, I was deemed the victor.  Thank you Google!

For accommodation tonight we opted to stay at a Best Western again.  There was some talk over what hotel to choose but in the end we went with the Best Western because it had a pool with a slide and a hot tub.  We ended up with a room that had a back door that lead to the pool area.  I thought that was pretty cool.

When we got into the room Sarah and Cam joked around.  The two beds had these long, hard pillows that looked like logs and they put them in the middle of the bed to act as a barrier.  They then pulled out their bibles and pretended that the barrier was room left for the holy spirit.  It was pretty funny.  Much funnier than my retelling of it.  Apparently I am supposed to make sure that it is clear that when it came to sleeping arrangements for the night they did not actually share the bed.  Sarah opted to sleep on the floor and Cam got the bed all to himself.

Following that Cam and Barb ordered some room service and then Cam, Sarah and I went for a swim and a hot tub.  We went down the slide then we did some aqua jogging and swam a few lengths – lengths being not even ten meters from one side of the pool to the next - and then we finished off with a soak in the hot tub.

That was more or less our day.  Not too much to report.  It is strange that 5 days have already gone by and only 2 remain.  Some how it doesn’t feel like 5 days have passed since we left Ottawa.

Road Trip Day 4: Thunder Bay to Winnipeg

After my shower this morning I was feeling good and ready for another day of driving.  The same cannot be said about my companions.  Barb hasn’t been feeling great ever since her back spasm and Sarah had been feeling a little off since the beginning of the trip and this morning was the pinnacle of her suffering.  This morning they both had pretty bad nausea, among other things.

They were in pretty rough shape but I was able to enjoy the delicious gluten free pancakes made by Aranka’s mom.  After I ate, Barb and Sarah chilled and tried to prepare themselves for the drive while I reorganized my stuff in the back of Stan so the middle seats had room to recline.

It took us longer to get out the door than planned but we made sure to thank our lovely hosts before we left.  We even grabbed a picture with Aranka before leaving.

This morning was the first time I really wished I could drive Stan.  Stupid rental rules!  I’m 22 – that’s plenty old enough to drive a minivan in my opinion. 

I don’t think I have ever felt so powerless as I did this morning.  I couldn’t drive and I couldn’t magically heal Barb and Sarah.  We were basically stranded in Thunder Bay until they felt better.

We stopped at a Starbucks attached to a Safeway so we could grab some coffee (apparently Tim’s coffee isn’t good enough for Sarah) as well as some anti-nausea remedies.  In other words I picked up more gravol and some ginger ale.

We hung out for a little while until Barb was feeling well enough to drive.  Sarah crashed in the back waiting for the medicine to kick in.  Surprisingly enough within an hour or so she was like an entirely different person – the wonderfully sweet Sarah we all know and love was back.

About an hour into our drive a cop car drove past us driving in the opposite direction.  Barb noticed in the rearview mirror that he did a u-turn to follow us.  Yeah we got pulled over.  According to him we were going 114km/h in a 90km/h zone.  I don’t know how he could tell how fast we were going since he was in a moving vehicle.  Oh well, he ended up letting us off with only an informal warning.  We were luckY!  Needless to say we were very conscience of our speed for the rest of the day.  Barb and Sarah opted to use the cruise control for a good portion of the day.

Not long after that we stopped at a rest area near a lake to use the washrooms and for me to make lunch.  I had the pleasure of discovering a couple inches of water at the bottom of the cooler from the melted ice.  Since I was the only one feeling well enough to eat I cleaned out the cooler, made a sandwich and then brought it with me to eat in the van so we could continue on.

Sarah took over driving since she was feeling significantly better and while I was eating we had a good conversation about different types of learning and the flaws within our current education system. 

From there we moved on to the topic of health and nutrition.  I’ve decided that when I get home I am going to work on developing a workout schedule and eating plan for the summer.  I do so much better when I have a plan or routine to follow.  You just have to compare my two semesters this year.  In the Fall I had a workout routine that has me running and swimming 5 or 6 times a week.  That helped improve my eating and my moods; and I even did pretty well in school.  This past semester I failed to develop a new workout routine that fit my new semester schedule.  My laziness resulted in weight gain, poor sleeping and eating habits, and being super stressed out by schoolwork.  Yep I think developing a workout routine for the summer is wise.  Don’t you?

The rest of the drive from that point until Kenora was pretty uneventful.  All three of us just kind of chilled and did our own thing.  I decided to start writing this post while in the van to save time.  I’m glad I did because I am absolutely exhausted and now I have less to write about before I can crash.

Kenora was our favourite small town in Ontario so far.  It was quaint and had a nice aesthetic.  I took a few pics as we were leaving.

Shortly past Kenora we reached the Manitoba-Ontario border.  It was kind of crazy how almost immediately you could notice a difference in the landscape.  At first there were still a few trees but later you could definitely tell we had entered the Prairies.  Right around then Sarah and I fell into a conversation about the Hunger Games.  Barb tuned out since she hasn’t watched the movie or read the book but she might someday so she didn’t want us to ruin it for her.  I found Sarah’s perspective on the storyline quite interesting since she had only seen the movie.  Plus she was able to relate her theological studies to the story, which I found kind of fascinating.  The only trouble is the movie tends to be to subtle about certain aspects of the plotline that were much more clear in the books so Sarah saw things quite differently than how they were portrayed in the books.  I really want her to read the books so we can discuss the series on a whole different level. 

About half an hour away from Winnipeg we noticed we could see the city pretty clearly.  It was kind of amusing.  I guess that’s the Prairies for you.

When we arrived Cam was in the middle of preparing supper and it was only then that I started to notice just how drained was.  A few days in a row with less than 8 hours of sleep and lots of time spent in a van will eventually take a toll.  As the only fully healthy one and the navigator/music selector I felt like I couldn’t sleep in the car, like I needed to stay awake so we didn’t get lost or so I didn’t miss anything.

My fatigue was made obvious when I said, “Sarah, I would be so excited if you left the continent!”  It sounds really bad but I definitely didn’t mean it the way it sounds.  I meant to say I would be happy for her to have the opportunity to travel abroad.  Travelling is one of the best experiences in my opinion.  You may have already guessed that though, eh?

Cam took us to visit some of her oldest and dearest friends after dinner.  They were going to have a bonfire but it turns out there is a ban on fires currently, which makes sense since it is incredibly dry and rather warm here.  Ever since I got here my lips have been really chapped and my throat has felt like it is perpetually dry.  Instead of a bonfire we ended up watching a movie called Chronicle.  I found it kind of strange and at times annoying.  The others seemed to enjoy it.  Near the end, one of my contacts folded in my eye and I had to take it out and put it back in.  It was kind of painful since my contacts were super dry, yet another side effect of the warm, dry weather here.

I’m really looking forward to having Cam join us.  He is quite the character.  I think he will provide some much needed entertainment through the flat Prairies.  Plus I think Barb and Sarah are looking forward to having him split the driving duties with them.