Going to Saskatchewan...

So we left on vacation on Saturday afternoon with a fully loaded van and pointed it east. Destination - Keddleston Camp on Last Mountain Lake in Sunny Saskatchewan. It's been a few years since we've been back but I'm happy to report that absolutely nothing has changed here. The sky is still big, the ground is still flat, the highways still look they belong in Beruit and the mosquitos are ever abundant...

Here's some highlights from the trip thus far.

Saturday Night
We stayed in Golden at "Mary's Motel" - (Trust me Barb, it's a great price and how bad can it be??) I should listen to my wife!! The place was a dump and there were several parties going on in the courtyard. This must be at least a -5 Star hotel! Tell all of your enemies to stay there!! :-)

Sunday Morning
We left at 7:00 which was an hour later than we had planned and about 3 hours after I finally fell asleep due to the social gatherings taking place all around us. After a quick stop at Tim Hortons, we proceeded towards our destination. Tyler asked if we could drive by the Saddledome in Calgary because he's a huge Flames fan. Normally, I would have given him an excuse but I decided that in light of the journey before us, 15 minutes out of our way wouldn't be the end of the world.

It was well worth the detour. We pulled up in front and he had to get out and "touch" the building, look in the window and just "be" there. Nice little diversion for the day.

Family nearly gets hit by Greyhound.
That should have been the headline on Monday morning. I cut off a Greyhound with about 100m between us when I pulled out in front of it. There was a semi turning left and the bus was in it's blindspot. When I pulled out, there was no where to go. Thankfully we made it with a bit of room to spare. It was close enough that I probably should have stopped to change my shorts, but I chose not to and just blamed the kids for the smell... Too close for comfort, but THANKS GOD!!

Driving in a war zone
With no exaggeration, I thought we were in Beruit when we drove into Sask. What had been a nice wide, smooth highway became the worst piece of road I've ever seen. I think they only mark the really bad ones because they are still looking for the vehicles that fell into them. I'd take pictures, but you'd think I was using a moon shot because the craters are so big!! Needless to say I'm not in a hurry to drive here again. it was pretty bad!!

After 13 hours we are almost at our destination. This is after Tyler and I talk for an hour about how straight the road is (no curves for miles...) and how flat the land is. The name of the place we're going to is "Last Mountain Lake". I asked him why he thought they called it that. He said "that's probably because we saw the last mountain 10 hours ago..."

The other "Tylerism" of the day came yesterday afternoon. We are staying at a spot where all of Barb's cousins are also staying. There's 9 kids under 10 on the site. Barb's cousin has one of those "Slow! Children at Play" signs because we're near the road. Tyler pulled me aside and asked "Dad, does that mean "Slow Children at Play" or that people should go slow because there's kids playing. After rolling on the ground, I told him that it was really about people needing to drive slow because there are kids playing and that none of his relatives are "challenged".

Daugher reunited with Family
Britt met us at the van with a big hug. She's been away for 3 weeks so we were quite happy to see her. She's made some new friends and has had a great time here. This week is family camp so she's having a lot of fun enjoying "Late Night" after "Mug Up"

Life is Good on Vacation! I should get to post again in a few days. Until then, don't smile to broadly when you're running down the street, the mosquitos really show up on your teeth!

Tim