Flatliners

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Day 5

Ok so i lied, we are on the internet again in another motel. It's just so much easier to stay in a motel on the side of the highway then to find a campsite and set up camp after dark, we figure it's worth the extra 25ish bucks tonight...plus it means another night of free wireless internet from our motel room. (i promised Jesse we would camp the next 3 nights) All the motels lure people in with free internet, or continental breakfast, we get both with our stay tonight at the Redwood inn, in Brandon Manitoba. Brandon is the 2nd largest city in Manitoba...we spent most of our day in the largest - beautiful Winnipeg - seriously, it really is beautiful...much more than I anticipated.

We started of the day in Ontario though, in the most beautiful cottage country ever. We drove from Nester Falls, through Sioux Narrows (a fantastic and history-filled place we vow to go back to again someday) - there is water everywhere and it is "cottage country" enough for some of the basic (and not so basic) creature comforts. 20 min down the road was our favourite place of the day - Kenora Ontario. Winnipeg's (and some of the northern USA's) cottage town - totally my style with a cute downtown and some spas that use all natural products - again, when we go back to Sioux Narrows we will also go back to Kenora. We had a fantastic lunch there and saw some of the lumber mills...it's a pulp and paper town and is still pretty active with that industry although Tourism seems to take the the cake these days.

Leaving Kenora, it was only 20 min on the trans-canada to Manitoba and already it started to get flat. We drove into Winnipeg and went directly to "The Forks", the place-to-be in the summer in Winnipeg apparently. It was fantastic, called the forks because it is the meeting of two rivers, the red and the assiniboine (mis-named the forks, because it's really a convergence rather than a fork...but we wont get technical).

We had a drink overlooking the water, did some walking around and some driving around to get a feel for the city and then had dinner in chinatown - a very satisfying visit I must say.

On the road again and we tried to get as far as possible before the too-dark and too-tired-ness set in. We are in Brandon and looking forward to getting deep into Saskatchewan tomorrow.

The wheat fields are ablaze in gold, the stacks of hay in the fields on the side of the highway are HUGE and seem to go on forever. The hydro-lines dominate certain vistas...this is Manitoba, a great Canadian province and a place we are honoured to be travelling through. The people have been so friendly and don't even seem to mind that we are from Toronto. We have got a few "oh, Toronto is so expensive to live in" and "I wouldn't be able to handle the traffic"... comments which we agree with and say "well, this place sure is beautiful"...that makes everyone happy I think.

We also have a new found appreciation for CBC radio - take a listen if you haven't for a while - some real gem programs are on...I say publicly funded radio and tv is a necessity for our great country.

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Comments

[anatosaurus]

manitoba peanuts
Ola! nice to read about your trip Can't believe you are in manitoba already, though i guess it is the next province over. i wanted to tell you a crazy thing about manitoba - it is also the name of a panamanian nut and trailmix producer. yup.