The Prairies

On 17 June, we finally left Ontario and reached Manitoba. You're not all of a sudden on the Prairies but rather the thick dark forests gradually change to scrub pine forests, then rolling hills and then the flat landscapes we all think of as true Prairie. Once we actually reached the prairie, I was amazed at how big the sky seemed, you were surrounded by it; it was like being inside a snow globe. I checked online to see how far you can see: on a flat surface, a human can see about 5 km (3 mi) but imagine being able to see 5 km in all directions; it seems like you can see so much farther than that.

Our first campground in Manitoba was Birds Hill Provincial Park outside of Winnipeg.  We would stay here for three nights.  Each campsite was pretty private being surrounded by tall bushes. This actually was a bit of a problem with Teddy, who usually barks just at other dogs and some vehicles; in these private sites, he began to bark at anything that moved.

While in Winnipeg we went to the cemetery where our dad's father is buried. We spent over half an hour looking for his grave until we realized we had the cemetery map the wrong way round. We also visited Louis Riel's grave at the St Boniface Cathedral. The second day we were there we went to Assiniboine Park and visited the Leo Mol sculpture garden. We had planned to visit the newly opened Leaf Gardens but it was so hot we ended spending much of the afternoon on a pet friendly patio that was part of a pop up bar in the park. How hot was it, well in Winnipeg that day it was hotter than Phoenix Arizona.

Birds Hill Provincial Park

Grandad Stewart's gravesite

Louis Riel's grave

St Boniface Cathedral

Winnipeg skyline

Assiniboine Park

Leo Mol Sculpture Garden

Our next stop for one night was Grand Valley campground near Brandon Manitoba. This campground was right off of the Trans-Canada highway so it was little noisy but not bad in the  overnight hours. 

There was a bit of a situation going on when we arrived, the owner of the campground was missing and there was a search party working from the campground. We had been assigned different sites than those we booked but were told we could take any site that was open. They closed the campground a day or two after we left and later we heard on the news that a water search had turned up his body.  

Trans-Canada highway in the distance.

Grand Valley Campground

The next stop would see us in Saskatchewan at River Park, the municipal campground in Weyburn, Sk. They had a lot of rain this summer and many campsites were pretty water logged, even the path to the bathrooms was a stream and the sanitation station was flooded. Luckily, our sites were pretty dry.  

This campground is located in a municipal park that has a splash pad, playground, picnic area and trails. There's a road in for the park and another one for the campground but it seemed to be a local past time to drive around and check out the tourists.

In Weyburn, we walked up to the lighthouse water tower.  It's no longer in use but it's one of very few lighthouse water towers still left. 

River Park Campground

Lighthouse Water Tower

Our next stop would be Saskatchewan Landing Provincial Park but on the way we stopped at Rouleau, Sask, otherwise know as Dog River of Corner Gas fame. There's not much left of Dog River even the grain elevator is gone so I was glad I had taken a photo of one at a gas stop.

old style Prairie grain elevator

Rouleau Sk, aka Dog River

We stayed two nights at Sask Landing, here we had a tornado alert but still had nice enough weather to get in some hiking on one of the shorter trails. We also found out how small a world it is when it turned out the couple camped in the site next to us were the brother and sister-in-law of a former work colleague of another of my brother-in-laws.  

Saskatchewan Landing Provincial Park

Prairie views

Prickly pear

Red River Cart sculpture

Goodwin House

South Saskatchewan River

Buffalo Rubbing Stone

Our next stop would be one night in Tillebrook Provincial Park near Brooks, Alberta. Tillebrook is only about 50 km from Dinosaur Provincial Park which would be our next stop; stopping at Tillebrook gave us the opportunity to go into town for some groceries and a liquor run before heading to Dinosaur. Tillebrook is a small provincial park just a kilometer off of the highway. Most of the sites are pull through, the park is set up in a number of loops each with vault toilets and there's a central shower facility for the whole park.  Since the forecast for the evening was rain; after setting up, we went into Brooks and, for only the second time time, we had our evening meal in a restaurant.  Our sister Annette had also contacted us to let us know that they weren't letting people check in at Dinosaur until check in time so with our errands done we were able to relax the next morning before the short drive to Dinosaur Provincial Park.

Tillebrook Campground

Relaxing Morning

Train on the Prairie

We would meet up at Dinosaur with another of my sisters, her brother-in-law, her daughter and her grandsons, also a friend and her husband would join us there. We would stay at Dinosaur for four nights before heading to Airdrie, which was our final destination on the trip West.  Dinosaur Provincial Park will be the next installment. 

Ontario

When we first started planning the trip out to Alberta, the US-Can border was still closed to unnecessary travel so we had to plan on going out through northern Ontario. Well, it's not really northern Ontario, just "near" north as we called it, but it's a route that goes up around the Great Lakes.  For my American friends, Ontario is larger than Texas. It took us seven days to get through Ontario, not counting those days we spent camping at some locations. You can drive it faster but towing a trailer really slows things down.

The first stop was at Emily Provincial Park near Peterborough, a short drive for my sister and brother-in-law and about a 3 1/2 hour drive for me. We stayed there two nights which turned out to be a good thing as poured rain while we were in Emily. We did get a chance to drive back into Peterborough and see the lift lock and luckily even got to see it in action.

Luckily, Maureen and Steve are experts at tarping a campsite when there's rain so even during rainy weather we were able to sit out and have our meals or campfires.

Our next stop was Killbear Provincial Park where we would again be staying two nights. We stopped in Parry Sound for some gas and groceries before driving out to the park. Killbear is on Georgian Bay which is part of Lake Huron.  It is famous for a leaning pine tree. We went in search of that pine once we got settled into our campsites, only to find that it is dying and now sadly has to be supported. 

Killbear campsite

The famous tree

Lighthouse trail

Georgian Bay in the evening

After Killbear, it was one night in Chutes Provincial Park. On the way, we made a quick stop in Sudbury to see the Big Nickel. 

Sudbury, The Big Nickel

Camp site at Chutes

The water falls at Chutes Provincial Park

Our next stop was in Sault Ste Marie, On. Here, we would stay for three nights at the KOA. The sites were small but we were glad for the amenities and took advantage of the dog parks, the laundry, the campers' kitchen and patio.  We also played tourist in the town visiting the locks and the boardwalk downtown.

Emergency Dam

The next three nights would be three one night stops to get us up and over Lake Superior and through the rest of Ontario. We had some beautiful views of Lake Superior but there really wasn't anyplace that was easy for us to pull over, most of the pull outs were on the east bound side of the highway. Once we got past Lake Superior, I found that Ontario has a lot of trees.

We stayed in White Lake Provincial Park. It was funny arriving as there was no park office staff available on Tuesday's. We were only there the one night and were leaving Wed morning; the staff just waved at us as we left. It's a self registration honour system; had we not had reservations we probably could have stayed for free. 

White Lake Prov Park campsite

White Lake

The next stop was Trowbridge Municipal campground in Thunder Bay, On. Before going to the campground, we stopped at the Terry Fox Memorial. If you've never heard of Terry Fox, he lost a leg to cancer and started the Marathon of Hope where he tried to run a marathon a day across Canada to raise money to fight cancer. He lost his battle with cancer and had to stop the marathon near where this memorial is located. Every year now, there are Terry Fox runs held across the country in his memory that continue to raise money to fight cancer.

Terry Fox Memorial

Terry Fox Memorial

Trowbridge Campground

Trowbridge Falls

The last stop in Ontario was Aaron Provincial Park near Dryden, On. It was damp and cold here so this was the first place on the trip where we ate our evening meal in a restaurant. The sun did come out in the evening for some nice pictures over Thunder Lake.

Sunset over Thunder Lake

Aaron Provincial  Park campground

 The next day would see us finally leave Ontario and head across the Prairies.  We left on the 6th of June and would only be leaving Ontario on the 17th of June. It would only take four more days of actual driving to reach Alberta. The Prairie journey will be the next installment. 

Been Gone

So it's been quite awhile since I posted last but I was away on my long road trip, ten weeks on the road with my sister and brother-in-law. We went out to Alberta through Northern Ontario and the Prairies and came back to Ontario through Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan. 

Ten weeks is a long time to be with two people you don't normally live with and sometimes we got on each other's nerves but in general we had a good time together. My sister is a good navigator and planned our daily routes from one campground to the next. 

My sister but especially my brother-in-law like to visit local breweries and bars, sometimes I felt like that was all they wanted to do. For me, I wanted to see the sites and not just sit on another outdoor patio having yet another beer, so sometimes I went off on my own. They also are far more relaxed in the morning, often having two cups of coffee before they even think of breakfast, that I can't do and so I started eating cereal or having a yogurt while having my first cup of coffee, otherwise I would have been starving before we had breakfast. On one occasion, when we only have a couple days in a location, I left to do my own thing after eating a yogurt and a few pieces of corn bread. 

We had campfires most evenings. My brother-in-law excels at chopping wood. My opinion is that he isn't as good of a fire maker as he thinks he is. For one thing, he uses all of the kindling he's made to start the fire, then when the bigger pieces don't light there's no small pieces left to keep the fire going. When he has a nice fire going with the kindling, he doesn't put a larger piece of wood on to get it going. He often knocks down the fire before it's hot enough and so usually has quite a smoky fire rather than a roaring fire. 

We didn't drive long days, although sometimes it felt like it. Most days we were at the next campground by about 2 or 3 in the afternoon, enough time to set up, walk the dogs and relax before dinner. We were quite lucky with the weather, while we had to drive in some rain storms and some strong winds, in ten weeks, we never once had to set up or tear down in the rain. 

We drove over 8000 kilometers to our destinations and over 9000 kilometers if you add in all the driving to visit various sites. We're still on speaking terms and have another short trip planned for September before the trailer has to parked for the winter. I'm going to get my photos downloaded from my phone and organized a little, then I'll do several posts about the trip. 

All Booked Up

Riverside Cedar Campground May 2019

Today we booked the final campground for the trip west to Alberta. Some provinces let you book so many days in advance of your arrival while others have an opening date when reservations for the whole summer can be made. 

Last week we booked in Birds Hill Provincial Park near Winnipeg Manitoba. We waited over an hour to get into the reservation system. I must have hit refresh at the right time as I got in about 5 to 10 minutes before my sister. As luck would have it, we're arriving there on a weekend and this is a very popular park for people in Winnipeg. You can make up to three reservations so I tried to book my sister's site as well but you need all of their account information to do it.  Luckily, the system gives you nearly an hour to finish your reservations so I grabbed two sites close to each other and held them in my cart until she got on, then I released one which she was able to grab. It did turn out that one of the sites I got was one we had looked at; both look pretty decent and are on the inside of the loop so not far from the toilets.

Today we booked at Saskatchewan Landing Provincial Park. The system was already up but you couldn't book until 7 am Central Time. There we're arriving mid week so it wasn't as much of a hassle getting sites, we got our second choice of the pairs we had picked. We're only there two days before heading to Tillebrook Provincial Park outside Brooks, Alberta.  Tillebrook is more of a pass through park being only 1 kilometer off of the Trans Canada Highway but it looks quite nice. Most of the sites are pull thru, great when you're just passing through.  Tillebrook is only 6 kilometers from Brooks, Alberta and just over 50 kilometers from Dinosaur Provincial Park, our last camping stop before Airdrie where we have family. Stopping at Tillebrook will let us have a lazy morning, then we can head into Brooks to do some grocery shopping before heading to Dinosaur.

We'll be in Dinosaur for four nights. Our sister who lives in Airdrie and her brother in law are going to join us. We were lucky to get three sites together there as well. Again, we'll be arriving on a weekend so what we did was book for an extra day, that meant we could book a day earlier for our dates, and then we changed the reservation for the correct arrival date. Much better to pay the $10 change fee, than not have a site. Had we waited until the next day we might not have gotten sites at all, when I looked there were only three sites in the whole park for our dates. I mentioned to a friend that we would be there so she checked online and was able to get a site behind us for three nights. 

We haven't yet decided how long we'll stay out west and what route we'll take back. Now that you don't need COVID testing to cross the border we might come back through the States. I guess we'll have to think about that soon. Kind of sad, that you just can't take off and go camping on a whim anymore. I guess we'd find places to stay even without reservations. 

It might have been

 "The saddest words of tongue or pen...it might have been."

Today might have been Keltic's tenth birthday.  We couldn't let it go by without a celebration. Happy Birthday to my Pumpkinhead, you were really such a good boy!

Liam and Teddy were happy to celebrate your birthday and to eat some apple cheddar pupcakes in your honour. I don't think they were as happy about getting pictures taken. I bought you some birthday balloons because ten is a milestone birthday. I hope you like them. 

We put a chair at the table just for you, I hope you were able to join us. I'm sure you did.

Teddy and Liam even wore their new St Patrick's Day ties for the party. And Liam didn't even steal a pupcake when I took them off the table, not like someone else did, right Keltic?

I miss you lots, just think what might have been...