As the lyrics to an old favorite tune rattle through my head, we're stopped in Brandon, Manitoba...home of the Wheat Kings of the WHL, and by the looks of the surroundings it is just that. For whatever reason, I pictured Manitoba as a dry barren landscape void of all life with the exception of large, carnivorous mosquitos. However, 75km into the province looks much like the landscape of Alberta, most especially the mid to northern parts around Red Deer. The mostly flat land with some rolling hills switches between vast fields of golden wheat and the green of alfalfa.
The trip from Regina to Brandon is another typically straight trek through Saskatchewan, and then as soon as you cross the Manitoba border, everything becomes more colorful...and the roads are paved...or at least they are working on them. Sure helps when the Feds make an initial attempt at economic stimulus and promise infrastructure dollars, or as I like to call them "make work projects". Regina was actually a very beautiful city and seemed clean for the most part. We are not really on any specific timeline so we ventured to a couple different parts of the city and through it's more famous Wascana Park and Heritage site. I didn't think I'd ever see water in Saskatchewan but Regina proved me wrong. The downtown was also nice and reminded me of a much smaller version of Calgary. One thing that did not go unnoticed in Sask was the wind! It was always blowing from the minute we entered to the minute we left, and good thing it was a tail-wind from the West...it probably helped the fuel economy somewhat.
Brandon wasn't our expected stop, that was supposed to be Winnipeg, but that would have meant another two or so hours of driving and we wanted to get the kids to bed at a good time and perhaps enjoy the hotel pool for an hour or so. We did manage to get the pool time in, but Liam did not settle until 11:30 or so...but we're thinking he must be on BC time still. The time change from West coast to East coast should be interesting when we try to get Liam down at his normal time and it'll feel like 4 o'clock to him. We figure he'll end up going to bed at midnight for a couple weeks or so.
I think our plans for tomorrow are to head to the Manitoba museum, and visit one of Shan's cousins that lives in Winnipeg. He seems to venture out West every so often but we've always missed him on his travels for various reasons. I think it'll be a fun day. We are going to head to Kenora, Ontario for tomorrow night's stay, mostly because it will shorten the trip to Thunder Bay. It seems the travelling stretches in Northwestern Ontario could be somewhat long, like 8 to 9 hours long, which was something we didn't want to have to do with the little ones. Again, here's to hoping there are at least a couple of interesting stops along the way to break up the day. If we find ourselves driving a couple of long days, I think we'll make up for it by stopping for a couple of nights in the Montreal area. There seems to be lots of cool stuff to see between Ottawa and Quebec city.
I guess I'll call it a night seeing as how I'm losing an hour almost everyday. Everyone is nestled in now and sleeping soundly. We've been staying at the Days Inn chain of hotels and I must say they have been more than accommodating. Pools, good continental breakfasts (more than just muffins and coffee), decent rates, comfy beds, and free wireless internet make for nice stays when you are away from your own bed. Although, it seems like I might have to offer up some contract work and fix their wireless routers because it's been a little flaky tonight and they blocked Facebook on us! Oh well, we'll endure.
Hope everyone is well, and we'll update soon.
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