Chapter 2

May 22

Chapter 2

As the soft sun slowly crept through the partial closed blinds, I lay next to my beautiful wife. She opened her eyes and seeing me, she leaned over and gave me a light kiss. I knew this was going to be a great day as I slowly ran my hand over her naked WHOA, WHOAAA, WHOAAAAAA. What could I be thinking, this is a nonfiction adventure not a romantic love novel. So here I am sleeping on the couch and a couple of feet away is Ellen sleeping on the table/bed. She says “Better get up, we have to travel another 250 to 300 miles again today”. So by 8:30 after eating we left Thief River Falls and headed for the Canadian border. The border guard at the small, low volume crossing, had drunk his morning coffee and needed some small conversation to get his morning going. It was the normal “Where were you born?” “Where are you going?” “How long will you be in Canada?” With each answer we gave, the longer the delay before the next question. Finally it was “Have a nice day”.

On to Winnipeg and a stop at the Canadian mint. We arrived at the mint a minute late for the tour, but the nice lady rushed us to catch the group just before they closed the door for the start. It was very interesting tour and all the coins for Canada are minted there along with coins for 75 other countries including the USA. Most coins for the US are commemoratives. Each coin is struck 2 times and the output is something like a zillion a minute or some amazing figure. Canada was the first to make colored coins but on the first issues it slowly rubbed off. They fixed that by enameling the color to the metal. As I recall, the loonie was not to be the design of the one dollar coin, it was of two explorers paddling a canoe. The sample issue and cast were sent to Ottawa for approval but was lost and never found. The loonie was the second design and is still being used. If you find the explorers cast and make your own coins everyone will know they are counterfeit. No free samples were given but lots to look at and admire.

At Regina, Capitol of Saskatchewan, we went to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police museum. There were interesting facts and artifacts on the RCMP with a sergeant’s parade at 12:45. We had our passes and were prepared to watch them, when they announced it was cancelled for the day. Our luck was not as good as with the mint. We spent the next morning roaming around the countryside and seeing backcountry and finding some birds. The afternoon was spent touring the legislative building. It had lots of marble with a British influence.

Manitoba and Saskatchewan are HUGE grain producing provinces. The fields must be 300 to 500 acres easy. And the equipment is HUGE too. Lots of equipment dealers with millions and millions of dollars of inventory.

Now has anyone seen the world’s largest Easter egg? We’ve got a check mark next to that item on the bucket list. It can be found in the little town of Vegreville, Sk. Weighing over 3000 lbs and standing 31 feet high. They call it a pysanka, and even the queen of England came to Canada to dedicate it. I sure hope we don’t run into the chicken that laid it.

We are now in Falher, Alberta. A nice city park. Folks around here should call it Paradise or Eureka. Not much to see but HUGE, there goes that word again, grain fields and oil wells. Many fields have oil wells in their HUGE fields. This central Canada area must be one golden wave of grain during harvest. Tomorrow 5/21, we head north again and again I expect to travel through trees but have been wrong before. Internet is sketchy so I have resorted to typing offline and add as an attachment. Let me know if there is something I’m doing wrong if you don’t get it. On the other hand, if you don’t get it, you won’t know I sent it. Anyway, it’s now almost 10:00 and the sun is still up and should set soon. It was nice today got up to 75 or so and sunny and we did a little birding.

May The Force Be With You. Steve