Oh, Canada!

May 17--Saskatoon, SK

I did indeed get a lot done: I organized everything, tidied up, swept and vacuumed, and sanitized the water tank. I also read for a while, and enjoyed the good weather. It really is a nice place, although I'll bet it gets hot in the summer.

I slept in just a bit, I suspect because the sun rose a bit later since I'm farther west, and also I found what diverts Puck when he's trying to wake me up: an open window. If you've seen the movie "Up", you know the deal: Puck comes and starts licking my hair/etc saying "I LOOOVE you Mom!" I open the window, he says "I LOOOOVE--BIRD!" and spends five minutes staring out the window. He remembers me, says "I love you Mom! I loooooove--" and I point him toward the window "y--BIRD!" and more staring. I'll have to try it again tonight.

We started out around 8:20 central time, and drove through relatively flat and empty country to the Canadian border at Portal. I did stop at Bowbells to fill up my tank, figuring that diesel would be more expensive north of the border (and it is, but it's less than regular gas, which blunts the sting a little). Crossing the border was relatively painless, although I couldn't really hear what the woman was saying, and I don't think she believed that I could be from Florida and not have any firearms. She also wanted to know why I kept going to Calgary, and I mentioned that I had relatives in Lethbridge and didn't like to fly the puddlejumper. She agreed, and waved me through; she did look at my passport, but not the cats' papers. I'm sure I'll need them to get back into the States.

In Canada, the scenery was incredibly repetitive, and a bit boring. Flat, gently rolling, very few trees. In NoDak at least I had begun to see a bit of badlands in the distance, but this was all flat farms. I did go through the town that recorded the record high temperature for Canada: 114 degrees, in July of 1937. Yep, that's warm. I also wonder what kids in these tiny towns without schools (or apparently without schools) do when the roads are closed in winter.

I don't have a very good Canada map (my atlas is lovely for the US but has zilch for Canada), and the tourist information station at the border was closed for the season. I'm winging it with a little atlas, which is fine except I didn't realize that Regina had a bypass road and wound up driving right through downtown. I stopped at McD's to get a couple of hamburgers, and then continued on up to Saskatoon.

I did have a sort of map for Saskatoon, provided in the brochure for the campground I'm in now. It's a bit dusty (there's construction going on across the road, and when the wind picks up it's a bit gritty), but otherwise it seems quite nice. The site is level enough without blocks, and now that I'm out of the US my non-digital TV is picking up two channels! Probably won't be anything to watch. I also bought myself an ice cream, since it's damn hot. I'd say the lower 80's, which is way too warm for this time of year. Two weeks ago it was snowing. This is better than snow, but I do wish it would cool down a bit.

The cats are fine; Puck's on the bed, napping, and Nell's on the dashboard looking at everything. I'm happy that we're not moving anymore today, that tomorrow will be a shorter day, and that I had ice cream! Also, that I caught that Visa had put a fraud hold on my card before it became an emergency, and fixed it! And ice cream! Yay!