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Published: April 24th 2015
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Ontario / Manitoba Boarder
friendly deer looking for food Manitoba Land Of A Thousand Lakes
We stayed in a campground not far from the highway. Max and Mel had dropped us off the night before and we were both very sad to see them go, we had become quite close but it was time for us to move on. We woke to a beautiful day the sun was shinning on the lake that we had camped next to and we decided not to eat one of our freeze dried meals but to see if we could find a place to get breakfast and celebrate getting out of Ontario. We found a cute little dinner not far from the campground and luckily on the way to the highway. The waitress was there and wanted to know everything about our trip which we were happy to tell her about.
It had been kind of chilly most of our trip and it was early so it was still a bit chilly, but as the morning went on it became hotter and hotter. Before we even reached the Trans Canada we were stripping down at the side of the road and changing into lighter clothing. we walked along the highway for a
indian head
this is what made me realise we were in one of the places I wanted to stop bit and for the first while it was kind of unnerving the lack of traffic, we had been living in the city and now a car would pass every 5 mins or so I was starting to worry about what the rest of our journey would be like. Trying to take it off our minds we talked about places we might want to stop, deciding we wanted to stop in Winnipeg if we found a driver going into the city and not through it. Almost like fate 5 mins later a car pulled over with a young woman and her boyfriend in the car heading into Winnipeg for the day. They were our first example of how friendly the prairies are, I cant remember there names but I do remember that she was 8 months pregnant. Its extremely rare to get picked up by people with children or pregnant woman, but here they were risking there safety and the safety of there unborn child for two strangers. I couldn't believe it, they told us about Winnipeg giving us advice on where to go and what to see and then driving us out of there way to get us to the
Indian head
18' Indian Head areas they had suggested. They also offered us money but we didn't accept it, it was early on in our trip and our funds were still doing alright. Andy and I spent the day just wandering around seeing the city taking pictures and enjoying life. As the day went on we were hot sweaty and getting irritable, we decided to find the YMCA and get a shower before we walked out of town its almost impossible to hitch hike out of a city. When we got to the YMCA we explained our story and one of the lady's there took pity on us and instead of charging us 12 each for a pass for the gym pool and showers they let us use just the showers for 2 dollars each. She gave us her phone number and then offered us her place for the night and a hot meal, she told us she lived in a cool area and that she would show us around the next day. we decided that if we couldn't get outta town we would stop by. I now regret not staying, but we wanted to continue on. We were getting tired of trying to walk
A Moose
in moose jaw out of the city and tried to hitch hike but it didn't work, eventually we stopped a car that was about to turn the corner and just asked them for a ride ... oddly they said yes, they dropped us off at a truck stop on the way outta town and there we got dinner and talked to the truckers until we found one heading west.
You don't notice right away how flat its getting when you are in Manitoba until after you leave Winnipeg, don't get me wrong it starts getting flatter as soon as you leave Ontario but there are still trees for a while, although they seem to slowly fade and then you leave Winnipeg and it hits you that its really everything people have said about it.... but the beauty hits you as well the endless sky and even better this amazing sunset we got to drive into it truly went on forever the colors seemed more vibrate then they ever did in Ontario. Maybe it was the large windows of the semi but the view was amazing. Our truck driver was from out east and was the most talkative person I met on the trip he was also our first experience with a big semi truck offering us a ride which we would learn is basically not allowed by most company's that hire these guys. Eventually he dropped us off at a campground in Saskatchewan. we had finished an entire province in one day and had stopped and toured around a city for hours it was completely different from Ontario which had taken un days to get out of.
Saskatchewan Land Of The Living Skies
We woke up to another beautiful day warm bright and blue sky in every direction. the night before we took our sleeping bags out on the grass and looked up with nothing getting in the way of the sky it was like we were in space and all we could see was stars. The Prairies at night had made me really come to see the beauty in two provinces. We stopped at a store just off the highway got a coffee and ate some granola bars and headed on our way soon realizing we had actually stopped not far from one of the places we really wanted to stop. Indian Head which had a giant 18' Indian head, I had started to love stopping to see these giant road side attractions and had decided that I wanted to take pictures with them if we could. luckily it was also right off the highway. Our next ride was a woman on her own with a child in the car... I was starting to wonder about why she had picked us up and asked her. apparently her sister also hitch hikes and wanted to help us out us this is actually a large amount of people who would pick us up they either have a family member who travels this way or did it themselves when they were younger. She dropped us off at a Tim Horton's in Regina we stopped here for a bit relaxing enjoying the sun having another coffee and figuring out what we wanted to eat, a lady in the line refused to let us pay for our meal. We made a sign and sat outside drinking our coffee we had many strangers offer us things give us money and let us know that the highway was actually walking distance if we didn't find a ride. which is exactly what happened. We walked up the road and on the on ramp and before we fully passed the merging lane we had our last ride for the day. We were picked up by a biker and his teenage daughter Hells Angels is what he said. He was very nice very polite and although there was almost no room in his car had stopped and squeezed us in. The 4 of us chatted and he gave us his number just in case we got in any trouble, since we decided to stop and stay in the town he lived in Moose Jaw, he left us at a campground and we decided that we would spend the day relaxing tanning and drinking a bottle of wine. which was amazing we had made it here by 1pm and had the whole day to relax and were only a few hours from Alberta.
Ps The things I wish I had time to take pics of in the prairies is the random fields of sunflowers, the sun setting and rising and of course the night sky.
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