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Published: June 29th 2009
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RCMP Heritage Centre
Liam really got into playing Mountie, but Cole didn\'t, so he was Liam\'s prisoner for this shot. We laid in bed even later today, ‘til the boys climbed in around 7. It took us about an hour to get ready, which is when I realized Jeff hadn’t changed his watch to mountain time and it was then only 7. We parked the camper out of the way and went off to find the Saskatchewan Legislative Building and Wascona Centre. We found an overlook for the first and noticed the lanes set up for rowing, but no one on the water. With a little more time and better shoes, it might’ve been nice to do the walk around the lake, but it was also very windy. By that time, the museums were open, too, so we started our official day.
Our first stop was the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Heritage Centre. My in-laws were there last year and said it was crazy busy, but we were the only ones there. They have exhibits about their origins and the different parts of the country they’ve protected (northwest early on to manage First Nations relations, north later). Liam had the most fun dressing up like a Mountie and riding a stuffed horse. Cole liked the progression of vehicles in the
center of the museum, from horses and dogsleds to snowmobiles and cars.
Our second stop was the Royal Saskatchewan Museum. It is separated into two sections—earth science and modern life. They have the expected exhibits for a natural history museum—geology, dinosaurs, animal dioramas. Cole particularly liked a 12x magnified dragonfly (which he thought was the daddy) and Liam liked being able to touch a bison hide. There was a diorama about the spring hunt, with bison carcasses, hides being stretched, meat being cured, etcetera, that prompted many questions from Liam—“who killed the bison?”, “why?” He seemed satisfied with my answers, which I appreciated.
Before leaving Regina, we decided to have lunch rather than subject ourselves to turkey sandwiches twice in one day. I told myself I wasn’t going to talk about food, but Ricky’s was really good. It’s a chain up here best known for breakfast. Liam had French toast sticks which he scarfed down in about 2 minutes. He then proceeded to eat half of Cole’s ham and pineapple pizza. Our waitress was really nice and treated the boys to a gift out of their treasure chest on the way out. I was impressed.
From there,
RCMP Heritage Centre
This is the first group of Mounties, when they were known as the North-West Mounted Police. we took off for Whitehorse, Yukon, 1700 miles to the northwest. We’re making decent time, despite the stiff west wind. Every single little pond had waves, which ws really weird. The tradeoff for time, though, is the 7-9 mpg we’re getting. At the end of the trip, we’ll just not think about the total cost of fuel. Anyway, we may take a little time to sightsee along the way, rather than drive fulltime. We met a Wisconsin couple at the campground this morning who are also heading to Alaska. They’re taking 12 weeks, though! Maybe we’ll see them on our way back.
We stopped at a Flying J east of Edmonton. It was advertised as having wi-fi, but the one unsecured connection never actually connects. There is a separate section for RVs, which is great, but there’s a trucker parked 2 spaces away idling, which completely defeats the point.
Conversation of the Day:
C: This is not a Chevy pickup.
L: Yes it is a Chevy pickup.
C: No it’s not a Chevy pickup.
L: Yes it is (starting to get whiny because he hates it when Cole is blatantly wrong)
C: It’s not a dualy.
RCMP Heritage Centre
One display was of the various medals and hardware they wore on their uniforms. L: Yes it is a dualy. We’re like sitting on top of the dualies.
(discussion between Jeff and Liam on diesel dualy truck anatomy)
L: So dualies are two together tires with two tires on it!
License Plates Noticed: SK, AB, MB, UT, ON, WI, UT
Animals Noticed (unique to the trip):
Cows (okay, we’ve seen them since the beginning, but this is the first time I thought to keep track)
Horses (see above)
Pronghorns
Elk (not wild)
High Temperature: 67o (Regina, SK)
Low Temperature: 60o (Regina, SK and Sherwood Park, AB)
Miles: 533.4
Total Time on the Road: 9:05
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Lorrin
non-member comment
Cole's right
Tell Cole he is right and Liam is wrong. It's a Chevrolet! Probably a little too technical but it's kind of funny how Cole can already push Liams buttons. Tell them we love them and to have fun!