It’s supposed to be summer!!

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It’s supposed to be summer!!

Tuesday, 26 June 2007

Today dawned cold and WINDY. Cold and windy enough that I decided against even trying to ride a bike today. Bob had gone to a lot of trouble to clean the mud off of Silver, so that I could use that bike on the trails again today, but it just didnt seem like it would be worth the effort. And I figured I should spend the odd day with him & Panna. So we drove to the Wascana Valley Natural Provincial Recreation Site - long name, sorry!

This place had been mentioned to me yesterday by the fellow in the town office of Lumsden, who said it was a popular area for hard-core mountain bikers, due to the very hilly nature of the terrain. And hilly it was. And windy! So windy in fact that we had to use the hoods of our jackets to keep our caps from blowing off - that’s not something we do every day. Panna had a great time romping through the grasses, looking for prairie dogs. She’s going to be plenty disappointed with the plain old squirrels once we get back home.

We returned to Lumsden for lunch & then returned to Regina, where Bob & Panna had a nap & I took a walk around the “neighborhood” - there’s a huge set of stores & chain restaurants very near to the hotel - it’s bigger than the Centrum in Kanata, more like the scene in Barrhaven - a real suburban “blight”, depending on your opinion. Anyway, I had some shopping to do, so I took a backpack & went from one end of the line of plazas to the other.

One really funny thing was a prairie dog who’s set up house under a grate essentially next door to my room, and Panna was going NUTS watching him (her?). He almost seemed to be taunting her, as he would run back & forth in front of our room’s sliding door. And when we go out she’s got to sniff into his hole & try to dig him out - if you’ve never heard a prairie dog squeal (chirp, whistle, whatever you call it), it’s a really piercing whistle, which again drives her insane.

DAY 7: Two walks, one with Bob & Panna in a beautiful but challenging terrain - 4 km; one in a suburban shopping district - 8.5 km - take your pick!

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