What a road trip...!! Part 1...

Meg and I loaded up Winny, our Windstar with many, many things. On June 3rd we took off for points east. Our destination was Meg's sister's 60th birthday bash in Barrie, Ontario. See the previous blog. With Elvis strapped into his seat in the back, Meg and I drove through BC and arrived in Cranbrook for out first stop at Deb and Sandy's. I had not fully researched our route to Barrie, had no realistic idea how big Canada was and nothing much to base a time line on the extent of our journey. With that, we were on the road early the  next morning headed for the Prairies. 

Driving through BC is awesome...driving through the Rockies is awesomer!! We stopped for a brief break in Ft. McLeod, AB and headed east. Most notable aspect of Alberta - lots of horses and lots of flat with a big sky. Before we knew it we were into Saskatchewan - most notable aspect - dead gophers!! I estimate that we saw 3-10 dead gophers/kilometer. It was gruesome!! We had seen traces of road kill through BC and Alberta - deer, crows, coyotes - but the Saskatchewan road was slippery with prairie dogs....gross!!


I suppose, because there are not a lot of diversions in the highway, it doesn't take all that long to cross through the Prairies. By 7pm we were in Regina and hooking up with my ol' cloggin' buddy, Donna. An all too brief rendezvous at East Side Mario's and we were on our way out of Regina and onto Weyburne for the night. 

Meg and I figured that it would be easier and less costly to travel through the States so we crossed the border at Noonan, ND. I'm not sure what the border guards were looking for but Meg and I were each interrogated separately and I am not unsure that Elvis wasn't X-rayed. His arm seemed to be weakened when we were allowed to return to the van. 


Once in North Dakota we immediately faced some fierce looking storm clouds on the horizon and before too long found that the radio broadcasts that we were tuned to were being pre-empted with severe storm warnings. For some reason they broadcast the warnings for specific counties  - unfortunately we didn't have any idea which county we were in nor which county we were headed. One interesting stop along the way was Rugby, ND. Turns out that Rugby, ND is the geographical centre of North America, according to the USGS. I captured the cairn erected on the highway, next to a great pie shop. My thought is that the citizens of Rugby, ND should erect a giant thumb tack or push pin to mark the geographic centre of NA, to attract people who like to visit places with giant 'things'. 


Meg and I eyed the blackening sky with a little trepidation and drove on to Fosston, MN for a rest. The good news - we got the last room at the inn, the one with the noisy but luxurious spa tub - the bad news - the only restaurant was the A&W. A Momma burger never tasted so good!


We found out that there had been a severe hail storm in the area just prior to our arrival - quarter-sized hailstones...some severe damage to vehicles...warnings to avoid the area. Little did we know! Off the next morning...through Minnesota...leaving the flat, big sky for a land of short trees, many lakes and lots of bass (from what I read on the billboards)...also a land of 'wild rice'. The road kill in this section of the world consisted of raccoons, deer, opossums and a hapless turtle that spun around one of our wheel wells...ugh! 

It's very beautiful in this part of the country, the road was easy to drive, no big trucks. We skirted Duluth and caught glimpses of our first Great Lake - Superior - as we drove along Hwy 2 to Marquette, Michigan where we called it a night. Next morning we were on our way to Sault Ste. Marie and my first look at Lake Huron. Since we were passing through the Muskoka area, Meg diverted off the highway and showed me the 'cottage country'. It's a beautiful area even as the fences were being erected for the G8 summit at Deerhurst. By nightfall we had arrived in Barrie.