I am wired for Syntatic Complexity

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We left Clearwater around 10:30 and paid 17 bucks for the site, which is good compared to the $30 we paid in Ontario. We skipped the showers ($1 for 4 minutes!) and headed out for Flin Flon, and Saskatchewan.

We were a little surprised to see rocks again. In Ontario, rock faces where roads were blasted through are common. In Manitoba, we hadn’t really seen anything like this until we approached the border. More interesting was that Manitobans tend to make a LOT more graffiti than Ontarians, possibly because there is less traffic and thus less chance of being caught. It was all stuff like ‘Class of ’94 Rules’ and ‘Joey loves Lindsay’ and even one bit commemorating Brazil’s world cup victory however many years ago. Most of them had a lot of care put into them too..entire backgrounds were coloured and most of them had borders, not just the simple quick spray-and-go tags we see in Ontario.

Flin Flon was one of the most pleasant cities we went through in Manitoba. It seems to be perched on wide expanses of open rock. Not much greenery/soil around. As we approached, we were a little worried it was going to be just a small mining operation - we were hungry and needed some gas. A huge smokestack dominates the area and is visible from all parts of town…we’re not sure what they were mining but it must have been a difficult extraction. We stopped at a small bookstore/coffee shop where I bought some good books really cheap, and went to the Liquor Mart (MLCC - like LCBO) which had an amazing selection of cider. Chris got a Monty Python Holy (gr)ail. We also got an orange soda from the gas station that tasted more like the inside of an old drawer than anything that might have come from an orange tree.

We left Flin Flon, and soon ended up in Creighton, which is Saskatchewan. Not sure where the border was, and there weren’t any fancy welcome stations like they have on the trans-Canada highway; we’d picked up some brochures earlier so we were ok for Saskatchewan though.

Because we went through north Saskatchewan, we didn’t see kilometers of kilometers of flat wheat fields. It was actually quite hilly. We were going to stop at a small highway gas/camp/food place to pick up some eats (still hadn’t had breakfast) but we never got out of the car. Within seconds of stopping, we were under siege by MASSIVE horse flies. There are hummingbirds smaller than these bugs. There must have been at least a hundred, circling the car, buzzing ominously, and bumping into the windows in their haste to get at our sweet juicy flesh. We sat there for awhile, hungry but neither of us willing to challenge the swarm. We drove off.

We drove through Narrow Hills park, which was SUPPOSED to be a game preserve, but we saw maybe 1 deer, which predictably ran across the road in front of us. Chris is really good at spotting them.

At around 4, we stopped in Prince Albert for food. Finally. We ate, gassed up, and left. The rest of the drive to Meadowlakes Provincial Park was pretty dull. Saw maybe 20 other cars in 3 ½ hours of driving. The Park itself was ridiculous. It’s basically composed of a bunch of large isolated campgrounds (1 per lake and there’s 3 main lakes and a bunch of smaller ones) connected by one wide dirt road. The roads inside the campgrounds are paved though, so we’re thinking they’re maybe in the middle of reconstructing the roadways. Also, most of the other campers here seem to be…campers. I guess there aren’t many lakes in Saskatchewan so most everyone has a little site here which they park their camper on for the summer instead of getting a cottage. They’re packed so tight…we’re not even sure how some of them parked their behemoths. We managed to get a bit of an isolated spot in a stand of jack pines. The whole campsite is supposed to be within a boreal forest, but so far (beside our stand of conifers) most everything is either birch or poplar. There’s a nature trail we might go on tomorrow so maybe that will explain a bit (Turns out most of the area was burned down awhile back and so the forest is currently in early successional stages)

Tomorrow, we will be going to Edmonton for the day. Exciting~! A day with less than 10 hours of driving and hopefully much fewer bugs.

Seen - 7 deer
Killed - Nothing (except bugs. The car is getting really gross and we’re considering a car wash. I’m thinking we should have taken a picture of the front every day to see the gradual buildup of bug-gut-crust. We might do this on the way back)

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Comments

[Linda]

You Make My Day
Your commentary cracks me up and keeps me smiling all day (Good pics too). Enjoy, be safe, keep in touch. Mom