We made it to cottage country! We are at a lovely campground overlooking The Lake of the Woods, which comes complete with loons calling and a low slung moon. This morning, we dragged our feet and made only half-hearted attempts to pack up the tent before we both conceded that we really wanted to stay here for a day. It's hot and there's beaches. And we loves the hot!
So we languished about the lake all day, soaking in the sun. Nothing feels as much like summer as jumping off the end of a pier into a cool lake on a hot day. And we saw the most amazing thing: A deer picked her way down the rocks to the lake and, without hesitation, slipped into the water and swam across the lake! She was smooth and graceful in the water and glided across rather effortlessly, her big sweet ears moving back and forth the whole time.
We're off to Dryden tomorrow. Today's posts are sans pictures and links because I'm doing this from the phone. I had hoped I would have a chance to talk about the highlights of Saskatchewan (the groovy little town of Craik and the amazing exhibits at the Royal Saskatchewan Museum, but I would prefer to do both when I can provide the accompanying photos. So, until the next time we find a proper Internet cafe,I suppose. We've appreciated very much all the positive comments and emails we've received (from around the world!) and wish that we had time to respond. Thank you to all, though, for the words of support and encouragement.
Friday, July 27, 2007
We Heart Winnipeg Too!
We had the most fun in Winnipeg. First of all, we were absolutely spoiled by Kieran's Aunt Olive and Uncle Russ. Aunt Olive cooked for us at all hours of the day and Uncle Russ chauffered us around the city.
Second of all, Winnipeg is cool! It has so much history and you can feel all 10,000 years of it, especially at The Forks. I loved the idea that 10,000 years ago people gathered at The Forks in the summer and here we are today, doing just that.
Our first day, we wandered around The Forks and took it all in then had lunch at the Marketplace before exploring Saint Boniface. In Saint Boniface, we found a lovely little cafe. After, we explored the old cathedral and found Louis Riel's tomb.
On our second day, we went to the Manitoba Museum, had lunch at a fancy restaurant that specialized in regional foods (bison steak and wild rice and little mini squash things!), and then took in a play at the Fringe Festival. The play was an absolute blast: Giant Killer Shark the Musical. It's just silly. Wonderfully silly. And I've got a penchance for silly. (Aside: I also think silly is the key to world peace. If only facist megalomaniacs were more silly, maybe they wouldn't take themselves and their manifestos so seriously, you know?)
Second of all, Winnipeg is cool! It has so much history and you can feel all 10,000 years of it, especially at The Forks. I loved the idea that 10,000 years ago people gathered at The Forks in the summer and here we are today, doing just that.
Our first day, we wandered around The Forks and took it all in then had lunch at the Marketplace before exploring Saint Boniface. In Saint Boniface, we found a lovely little cafe. After, we explored the old cathedral and found Louis Riel's tomb.
On our second day, we went to the Manitoba Museum, had lunch at a fancy restaurant that specialized in regional foods (bison steak and wild rice and little mini squash things!), and then took in a play at the Fringe Festival. The play was an absolute blast: Giant Killer Shark the Musical. It's just silly. Wonderfully silly. And I've got a penchance for silly. (Aside: I also think silly is the key to world peace. If only facist megalomaniacs were more silly, maybe they wouldn't take themselves and their manifestos so seriously, you know?)
We Heart Manitoba
They say a change is as good as a rest. Indeed. Manitoba, humble little Manitoba, provided us with both.
I don't know that either of us had high expectations for Manitoba. In terms of biking, many of the Web sites we'd read in preparing for our trip spoke poorly of Manitoba as a place to bike. Almost universally, people complained about the roads and the fact that the shoulders aren't paved and about the bugs. And, indeed, the shoulders aren't paved. Anywhere. Even in many parts of Winnipeg. And the bugs! The bugs are something terrible. Whatever your worst bug experience is? It's like that, only worse.
All the same, we found Manitoba to be just lovely. We stuck to the secondary highways and people were respectful and cautious around us and the roads were blessedly quiet and it really didn't matter that we couldn't ride in the shoulder. And the bugs? Well, everything else was so lovely that it's okay that we had to sacrifice large hunks of flesh to their rabid maneating mosquitoes.
The difference between Manitoba and Saskatchewan/Alberta was apparent almost immediately after crossing the border. The towns are older and they have lovely Victorian buildings and parks and majestic old elm trees and oak trees lining the streets. And the campgrounds were equally lovely, many of them built in 1970 for the Manitoba centennial, which means they're all treed in nicely.
And, yes, the food is better. Our first night in Manitoba we stopped in Virden and wandered into a restaurant on Main Street that really didn't look all that promising, just more promising than all the other restaurants. But then, in talking up her turkey special (which I had no intention of getting as I'd once made the mistake of getting a ham special and was served Spam and mashed potatotes made from a powder), the owner leaned in and said, "I'm not like those other places. I use real meat. I bought it from a farmer this morning. And I make my own gravy." Uh, SOLD!
Kieran still talks about that turkey. I mean, you can't go wrong with anything soaked in homemade gravy, but you really can't go wrong with fresh turkey packed between two slabs of bread soaked in homemade gravy. Seriously, peeps, you simply can't revere the true meaning of the phrase "two slabs of bread soaked in homemade gravy" until you bike for eight hours first. Gravy is not food. It's God Goo oozed straight from the heavens into the open pores of your fluffy, fluffy simple carbohydrates..
It is incredible how much better we felt after that meal. That gravy seemed to simply washed away all our troubles. (The next time you're feeling down or demoralized, I would prescribe tucking into some turkey sandwiches soaked in God Goo. It's like a small injection of Prozac.) Turkey endorphins and longlost vitamins coursing through our veins, we both kept remarking, "I LIKE Virden. It's NICE here. Don't you think it's NICE here?" as we rambled about town after our meal.
But the food crisis met its official demise in Winnipeg, thanks to Kieran's Great-aunt Olive. Olive stuffed us with homemade bread dripping in homemade butter, raspberries and beans from the garden, fried chicken, and grilled salmon. It's impossible to maintain any semblance of low morale when you have a sweet aunt who scratches your back every morning while you sip your fresh coffee and wait for your hashbrowns.
I don't know that either of us had high expectations for Manitoba. In terms of biking, many of the Web sites we'd read in preparing for our trip spoke poorly of Manitoba as a place to bike. Almost universally, people complained about the roads and the fact that the shoulders aren't paved and about the bugs. And, indeed, the shoulders aren't paved. Anywhere. Even in many parts of Winnipeg. And the bugs! The bugs are something terrible. Whatever your worst bug experience is? It's like that, only worse.
All the same, we found Manitoba to be just lovely. We stuck to the secondary highways and people were respectful and cautious around us and the roads were blessedly quiet and it really didn't matter that we couldn't ride in the shoulder. And the bugs? Well, everything else was so lovely that it's okay that we had to sacrifice large hunks of flesh to their rabid maneating mosquitoes.
The difference between Manitoba and Saskatchewan/Alberta was apparent almost immediately after crossing the border. The towns are older and they have lovely Victorian buildings and parks and majestic old elm trees and oak trees lining the streets. And the campgrounds were equally lovely, many of them built in 1970 for the Manitoba centennial, which means they're all treed in nicely.
And, yes, the food is better. Our first night in Manitoba we stopped in Virden and wandered into a restaurant on Main Street that really didn't look all that promising, just more promising than all the other restaurants. But then, in talking up her turkey special (which I had no intention of getting as I'd once made the mistake of getting a ham special and was served Spam and mashed potatotes made from a powder), the owner leaned in and said, "I'm not like those other places. I use real meat. I bought it from a farmer this morning. And I make my own gravy." Uh, SOLD!
Kieran still talks about that turkey. I mean, you can't go wrong with anything soaked in homemade gravy, but you really can't go wrong with fresh turkey packed between two slabs of bread soaked in homemade gravy. Seriously, peeps, you simply can't revere the true meaning of the phrase "two slabs of bread soaked in homemade gravy" until you bike for eight hours first. Gravy is not food. It's God Goo oozed straight from the heavens into the open pores of your fluffy, fluffy simple carbohydrates..
It is incredible how much better we felt after that meal. That gravy seemed to simply washed away all our troubles. (The next time you're feeling down or demoralized, I would prescribe tucking into some turkey sandwiches soaked in God Goo. It's like a small injection of Prozac.) Turkey endorphins and longlost vitamins coursing through our veins, we both kept remarking, "I LIKE Virden. It's NICE here. Don't you think it's NICE here?" as we rambled about town after our meal.
But the food crisis met its official demise in Winnipeg, thanks to Kieran's Great-aunt Olive. Olive stuffed us with homemade bread dripping in homemade butter, raspberries and beans from the garden, fried chicken, and grilled salmon. It's impossible to maintain any semblance of low morale when you have a sweet aunt who scratches your back every morning while you sip your fresh coffee and wait for your hashbrowns.
Some Tidbits
I have a new appreciation for the Lions Clubs. Thanks to the Lions Clubs across the nation, we can pretty much count on even the tiniest of towns having a campground. No, better yet: a campground with a shower. Until we took this trip, I didn't realize how much the Lions/Kinsmen, etc. did for their communities.
I know, I know. It's a bit odd to have grown up in a small town whose only campground was the Lions' Campground and not realize that Lions do that kind of thing for their communities. Honestly, I didn't really put together that the Lions Campground in town was developed by, uh, the Lions Club. I think when I was a kid I just kinda thought that was the NAME of the campground (possibly having something to do with mountain lions). But then again, it was odd for me to be shocked by the quality of food served in small town diners. In my defense, we never ate at those diners (and now I know why!) because we always just ate my mom's cooking from the garden. Anyhoo, I can see how all the Lions parks and campgrounds and info centres can really boost these little towns and think it's pretty cool that the Lions give back to their communities so much. It all got me to wondering: Is there a similar women's group common to small towns? If not, I'm going to start a Cougars' Club (har!) if/when we have a town to call home.
Yes. We've certainly gotten to experience a big slice of life in a small town. Including witnessing first hand the gossip for which small towns are notorious. And, no. It's not the women who sit around clucking and cooing about the various misfortunes and misdeeds of their neighbours. (At least not publicly; perhaps women prefer to gossip by phone.) No, it's the men. Walk into a diner anywhere in the prairies and you'll find an ever growing cluster of men, ball caps perched on their heads, coffee cups in hand, and a river of gossip flowing between them.
Here's a transcript of a conversation overheard at the cafe in Delia, Alberta:
Farmer 1: I was kinda surprised how Tracey stood up to Ben there.
Farmer 2: Yeah? Naahhh. I wasn't.
F1: No?
F2: Nah. [Waves hand] You seen the way she is with them kids.
F1: [Chuckles] You got me there. You got me there.
F2: I heard he's staying up there on Griswold's couch now. [Chuckles] I guess the other gal he took up with there won't have him back neither! [Both laugh.]
And because I made a big deal about it last time, I feel obliged to provide some follow-up. The headwinds continue unabated. In fact, they've worsened. (Our ability to cope with them has markedly improved, however, thanks to some good hearty meals.)
In manner of true Canadians, we've taken on an attitude of a perversely healthy learned helplessness towards the horrible weather pattern by which we're plagued. A sort of "Sure, this is really terrible and absolutely everything would be easier and more pleasant if only the weather was different or if I lived somewhere more hospitable to human life, but I can be miserable and be happy and have fun at the same time!" attitude.
And, just as every March it seems that this this year might actually be the year that winter doesn't end and you resign yourself to that possibility since it's been so long since you felt the sun on your skin anyway and you've forgotten what you're missing, we've resigned ourselves to the idea that the headwinds might never end. It's been so long since we've been able to travel at speeds over 12 kilometres per hour or since biking wasn't a patella crushing grind that I think we'll be really surprised--pleasantly surprised--when one day we breeze along the road at a nice brisk clip with minimal effort thanks to the tailwind that's decided to show its face. (Are you listening Universe? If you could arrange that, that would be GREAT.) In the meantime, the headwind has become as integral to biking as pedalling and although we occassionally suffer from anxiety due to our slowed timelines, we don't fuss much over it anymore.
On a somewhat related note, Mom said that after my (admittedly) somewhat disheartened posts about Saskatchewan, folks were concerened that we weren't enjoying ourselves (such is inevitably the case when you have an extended network of concerned aunts and uncles reading your blog). Indeed we are. This trip is not easy--nor was it expected to be--and I don't think fun is quite the right word, but we feel alive. We're working our bodies hard and we're outside in the sun and the wind and the rain and there's deer and ducks and bird calls and dangling our feet off of docks and, all in all, we feel pretty much the opposite of what it feels like to sit in a cubicle rotting in front of a computer. In fact, in many ways this whole trip may have been an elaborate scheme to ensure we didn't spend another summer cooped up in an office. (For the record, I am currently in the market for a scheme that will prevent me from ever returning to an office job. I DON'T WANT TO GO DEAD INSIDE EVER AGAIN. I'm just saying.)
I know, I know. It's a bit odd to have grown up in a small town whose only campground was the Lions' Campground and not realize that Lions do that kind of thing for their communities. Honestly, I didn't really put together that the Lions Campground in town was developed by, uh, the Lions Club. I think when I was a kid I just kinda thought that was the NAME of the campground (possibly having something to do with mountain lions). But then again, it was odd for me to be shocked by the quality of food served in small town diners. In my defense, we never ate at those diners (and now I know why!) because we always just ate my mom's cooking from the garden. Anyhoo, I can see how all the Lions parks and campgrounds and info centres can really boost these little towns and think it's pretty cool that the Lions give back to their communities so much. It all got me to wondering: Is there a similar women's group common to small towns? If not, I'm going to start a Cougars' Club (har!) if/when we have a town to call home.
Yes. We've certainly gotten to experience a big slice of life in a small town. Including witnessing first hand the gossip for which small towns are notorious. And, no. It's not the women who sit around clucking and cooing about the various misfortunes and misdeeds of their neighbours. (At least not publicly; perhaps women prefer to gossip by phone.) No, it's the men. Walk into a diner anywhere in the prairies and you'll find an ever growing cluster of men, ball caps perched on their heads, coffee cups in hand, and a river of gossip flowing between them.
Here's a transcript of a conversation overheard at the cafe in Delia, Alberta:
Farmer 1: I was kinda surprised how Tracey stood up to Ben there.
Farmer 2: Yeah? Naahhh. I wasn't.
F1: No?
F2: Nah. [Waves hand] You seen the way she is with them kids.
F1: [Chuckles] You got me there. You got me there.
F2: I heard he's staying up there on Griswold's couch now. [Chuckles] I guess the other gal he took up with there won't have him back neither! [Both laugh.]
And because I made a big deal about it last time, I feel obliged to provide some follow-up. The headwinds continue unabated. In fact, they've worsened. (Our ability to cope with them has markedly improved, however, thanks to some good hearty meals.)
In manner of true Canadians, we've taken on an attitude of a perversely healthy learned helplessness towards the horrible weather pattern by which we're plagued. A sort of "Sure, this is really terrible and absolutely everything would be easier and more pleasant if only the weather was different or if I lived somewhere more hospitable to human life, but I can be miserable and be happy and have fun at the same time!" attitude.
And, just as every March it seems that this this year might actually be the year that winter doesn't end and you resign yourself to that possibility since it's been so long since you felt the sun on your skin anyway and you've forgotten what you're missing, we've resigned ourselves to the idea that the headwinds might never end. It's been so long since we've been able to travel at speeds over 12 kilometres per hour or since biking wasn't a patella crushing grind that I think we'll be really surprised--pleasantly surprised--when one day we breeze along the road at a nice brisk clip with minimal effort thanks to the tailwind that's decided to show its face. (Are you listening Universe? If you could arrange that, that would be GREAT.) In the meantime, the headwind has become as integral to biking as pedalling and although we occassionally suffer from anxiety due to our slowed timelines, we don't fuss much over it anymore.
On a somewhat related note, Mom said that after my (admittedly) somewhat disheartened posts about Saskatchewan, folks were concerened that we weren't enjoying ourselves (such is inevitably the case when you have an extended network of concerned aunts and uncles reading your blog). Indeed we are. This trip is not easy--nor was it expected to be--and I don't think fun is quite the right word, but we feel alive. We're working our bodies hard and we're outside in the sun and the wind and the rain and there's deer and ducks and bird calls and dangling our feet off of docks and, all in all, we feel pretty much the opposite of what it feels like to sit in a cubicle rotting in front of a computer. In fact, in many ways this whole trip may have been an elaborate scheme to ensure we didn't spend another summer cooped up in an office. (For the record, I am currently in the market for a scheme that will prevent me from ever returning to an office job. I DON'T WANT TO GO DEAD INSIDE EVER AGAIN. I'm just saying.)
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