Blogs from Manitoba, Canada, North America

And were off! I left London May 7th with a carload packed full of canned foods, camping necessities, a few clothes and my good friend from high school, Benny. When we first left I got a little bit of an erire feeling whenI thought about how long I'll actually be gone for, but the excitement took over pretty quick. We didn’t even make it out of London before something happen to the car were taking, a 1995 Honda Civic with 350 000km. Luckily it wasn’t something major, one of belts had snapped, so it was replaced right away. It took us 5 days and 2500km to get through Northern Ontario.I think that’s farther than a few people expected the car to make it. She’s still running great, although we pull over every few hours and let ... read more

Brrrrr.....Hi all! Leaving Ontario we finally saw the sun, but we had to pay for it dearly with sub-zero temperatures! We had our end of day celebration in a small town east of Winnipeg called Ste. Anne. After the celebration we headed into Winnipeg. Our hotel was right downtown on Portage very close to Main. The following two days were non-relay days. We reluctantly ventured outdoors to do some maintenance jobs and some accessability research for our Global Accessability Map. www.rickhansenglobalaccessibilitymap.comThe temps were -30 degrees before the windchill! After the two days the relay started back up again in Ste. Anne bringing the Medal to the Forks in Winnipeg. Still very cold! Rick is back with us. It is great to have him on the road with us again! We had great entertainment at our End ... read more

Hey Folks. Just the other day, I was on the ground working out at the lodge when I had a wee visit from one of our furry friends. We get bears at the lodge all the time as they check it out and hang around for a few hours before moving on, but this time he decided to check me out instead! He appeared out of nowhere (like bears often do) and stood looking at me from about 15 - 20 ft. I pumped a slug into the chamber of the 12 gauge and had my finger on the trigger as I walked back to the vehicle whilst pointing the gun at the bear the whole time. It was an odd experience! I was thinking "are you gonna eat me or are you gonna just stand ... read more

We left Saskatoon on September 8th, and spent the first night in a beautiful rest area (aka “free parking”) at Minnedosa, MB. We parked beside a small lake and witnessed an awesome sunset, with several flocks of Canada Geese flying over, starting out on their trek south as well. What we didn’t realize was that they don’t bed down and take a break for the night. Several night flights came in, all with a bunch of quacking and honking, as they greeted and reminisced about their summers with old friends. There were new arrivals every hour, twenty minutes of quack, honk, quack, honk while they caught up on news, then all settled down for awhile until the next flight came in. Note to self – don’t park beside a natural breeding pond, even though tempted by ... read more