Sunday, June 10
On Sunday afternoon we walked along the footpath beside the Bow River to the new Peace Bridge that crosses from near the Kensington neighbourhood to Prince’s Island. It apparently cost heaps of $$$ but is a striking design. It’s much wider than it looks with a centre area for cyclists and raised sidewalks on either side for pedestrians.
Katherine had a nasty slip earlier in the year and is still unable to walk on that foot for any distance. However, she has a handy scooter that she kneels on with her ‘bad’ leg and pushes herself around with her good leg.
On Sunday evening Katherine and Ute hosted a pork rib BBQ with most of my ‘old’ Calgary friends in attendance. The food was delicious and after three hours of intense visiting I was exhausted. It was great to see everyone again. I had such a good time that I completely forgot to take some photos.
Monday, June 11
On Monday morning Ute and I packed up the van and headed off down the Trans Canada Highway to Medicine Hat where we had lunch with her mother, Maria. We went to the local A&W for burgers and root beer. (Maria had coffee.) Ute and I both remarked that A&W root beer still tastes the same as it did when we were kids. Nice that some companies can resist ‘improving’ a product that is already quite satisfactory.
After lunch, we headed to Cypress Hills Provincial Park. The Cypress Hills (if you don’t already know) is an area of the prairie that the ice age glaciers went around and so they weren’t scraped away and rise above the surrounding prairie. The higher elevation makes for a sub-alpine type forest and a very different eco-system than the prairie that’s only a few kilometres away. We camped on Monday evening at Reeser Lake although the campground is not actually beside the lake and which involved driving through a brook to actually get to out campsite. There were only two other campsites occupied this night.
Tuesday, June 12
Another long day of driving. Things look so close together on the map but it really is a bit of a drive from the Cypress Hills to Grasslands National Park in the very south of Saskatchewan. We started out fairly early but didn’t get to a campsite until after 6pm.
Early on we stopped at the visitor’s centre just across the Alberta/Saskatchewan border. The woman was very chatty and helpful and even gave us some tips on roads to avoid due to potholes. Some of the paved roads we ended up on were very rough so I can only imagine how bad the ones we missed were. Travelling to Grasslands, we were either going south or east. South down one road and then a ninety degree turn and east on another.
We stopped in Eastend, Saskatchewan for a bite and got some take out at Charlie’s Lunch. There were some chairs on the sidewalk so we sat down to enjoy the sun, the breeze and the food. Soon an old farmer came along and sat down to have a smoke (hand rolled) and gently interrogate these strangers. We interrogated him right back. He’s eighty and has lived in the area all his life. These days he farms alfalfa although these days someone else does the harvesting. Soon we were joined by some of his old cronies who joined in the conversation. We felt as if we’d just fallen into an episode of “Corner Gas”.
By late afternoon we’d arrived at Val Marie where Parks Canada has their visitor’s centre for Grasslands National Park. I think the gal at the counter was happy to have some visitors as she was very friendly and informative about the park. It turns out the camping area was about a 35 km drive into the park. We arrived around 6:30pm and jumped out of the van happy to finally be stopped for the night. We ran to look at the views of the prairie but quickly noticed that waves of ravenous mosquitos were descending on us. We fled back to the van for some insect repellent. Despite DEET and a strong breeze the pests continued to plague us for the rest of the evening. At least I got to test my new bug screen for the side door of the van and it proved to be very effective at keeping most of the mosquitos outside. After the sun set, it cooled off quite a bit and most of the bugs went back from whence they’d come.
Wednesday, June 13
After a day of sunshine, Wednesday morning was overcast and cooler. There was a sprinkling of rain and then heavier rain so we stayed inside the van for most of the morning. Around 10am our neighbours and their RV left us all by ourselves. A little later a couple of Parks Canada employees arrived. It turned out they were looking at the outline of a planned route for a new trail down to the river and back to the campground. Grasslands is a relatively new park and still being developed.
After lunch the worst of the rain seemed to have ended so we headed out for a walk along the gravel road that runs through the park. It’s quite OK to free range in the park out over the grasslands but there’s quite a few thorny plants and cactus so it didn’t seem very Eliot friendly to take him off-road. We walked about four kilometres east along the road enjoying the views.
We got rained on a few times and the road turned out to be quite muddy. Our shoes picked up big gobs of the stuff and we returned with mud caked over our shoes. During our walk we visited one of the several prairie dog colonies. Ute even spotted a burrowing owl sitting on top of its burrow. The owls like to move into abandoned prairie dog burrows. We weren’t sure how Eliot was going to react to a field full of squeaking rodents but his hearing is starting to go and he didn’t take any notice.
After we returned the sun had come out and it was good to sit in the sun in the brisk breeze and dry out. Ute decided to do a little reading.
The evening skies and landscape after supper were quite spectacular.
Thursday, June 14
Last night was a wild one weather-wise. The wind blew and the rain came down again. By morning the rain had stopped but the wind was still howling. Last night we were joined by a lone camper (Joanne) who was travelling from Victoria to Winnipeg. She was lucky she slept in her car for the night as I’m not sure she would have had enough pegs to keep her tent from taking off.
We were a little worried about the now quite muddy road up out of the Frenchman River Valley. We’d come down a long hill coming in and I was a little nervous about the drive out. But we’d run out of water so didn’t have much choice. (Although we did, for a short time, think of stealing Joanne’s.) But we packed up and were off by about 9:30am. The road turned out to be as slippery as expected as the mud caked the tire treads and made steering unreliable. It was a long drive in first and second gear. And the hill turned out to be as difficult as we feared. We’d almost gotten to the top when we came to a standstill. I backed down the hill and we gave it another try and managed to crest the hill. Whew!
We’re now at a regional campground outside Wayburn, SK. We arrived by travelling along Hwy 3 – otherwise known as the Red Coat Trail. We stopped for lunch in Assinaboia. A rather dreary town with almost nothing to recommend it … at least that we could determine from our short stay. Wayburn is bigger and more attractive and it’s here we’ll spend the night.
