Saturday, November 29, 2003
Saturday morning we drove down to Saskatoon, which is in Saskatchewan, which of course is very exciting. I mean, you know? This was the big day, the day we'd finally set eyes on the promised land.
Before we hit Saskatchewan, though, we made a stop in Vegreville, Alberta, to look at their giant Ukrainian Easter Egg (or "pysanka"), which is actually far cooler than you'd think. Here's Chris with the egg:
Apparently the construction of the egg involved a lot of engineering "firsts", and the Queen visited the egg on Chris's third birthday: Rah! There's also a nice statue of an elk and a rather spiffy sign that says "Vegreville" in a great 70s font with the Canadian flag, the Alberta flag, and two pysanka flags. Anyway, it's worth a stop.
We drove on until we hit Lloydminster, which is a town that straddles the Alberta and Saskatchewan border. Here is Chris standing just on the other side of that border, which is marked by two big red poles sticking up in the sky:
While in Lloydminster, we saw a used CD store, and we had to check it out. What unholy treasures would we find here, marked at ridiculously low prices? Well, we got a Loren MazzaCane Connors and Alan Licht CD for $6 Canadian, as well as some Astor Piazolla tangos. So that worked out well.
We also finally caved in and checked out Tim Hortons, which is a chain of doughnut shops scattered across canada like so many sprinkles on a vanilla dip. So many. So very, very many. We eventually started to refer to small but not-dead towns as being "one-Tim Hortons towns", and were sometimes amazed at how some small-seeming burgs managed to boast two or three Tim Hortons. (We also figured it took about two or three Tim Hortons before you earned your first Boston Pizza.) Anyway:
On the one hand, we had heard a lot of hype about Tim Hortons before we arrived in Canada, and were disappointed to discover they were really just a glorified Dunkin Donuts-type joint (although much better than Dunkin Donuts). Then again, we ate more doughnuts on the trip than we would normally eat in, say, a year.
Onward into Saskatchewan!
The drive was beautiful, and just as we expected: Desolate, empty, except for the occasional roll of hay:
...and the occasional grain silo, both new-school:
...and the old-school prairie sentinals, the grain elevators:
We didn't know anybody in Saskatoon, and hadn't been able to get a show there. But after spending the night in the Riviera Motel (whoo!) we poked around the town a bit, and took pictures of odd sculptures, Ukrainian churches, and the waterfront park with its famous bridges.
We had some time Sunday morning on our drive to Winnipeg, so we made a lot of stops during the brief daylight period and took pictures. Ryan brought his old-school camera, and the prairie winds (which are FREAKIN' COLD! and SHARP!) threatened to swipe his blanket away from him a few times:
We made a stop in this incredibly small town called Kandahar, trying to gain access to the Big Quill Lake. It's an International Bird Sanctuary, or something, but the birds are mostly there during the summer, I suppose. We pulled into what turned out to be someone's driveway, and they had all these immaculately painted birdhouses on their fence and some great details in their yard. Anyway, here's Kandahar and the Big Quill Lake:
Saskatchewan stretched out, nearly forever.
Late Sunday evening, we arrived in Winnipeg.
