Moose Jaw

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Waitin’ on the Mail

I was supposed to be heading Saskatoon way tomorrow, but my mail hasn’t arrived yet, so I’m staying at this park until Friday. If the mail isn’t in by then, I’ll move to a fancier park for the weekend, one with internet and laundry facilities. At least, there are worst places to be stuck!

The park where I’m staying does have wi-fi, but only at the owners’ home, where I’m sitting outside freezing my butt off watching an amazing prairie sunset. Unfortunately, my laptop is much to slow to do any real surfing, so replies to comments and updates with photos will have to wait until I can get online with my iMac.

I had a great time in Moose Jaw yesterday and an equally good one today at the RCMP heritage centre, but write-ups will wait until I can provide pictures. 🙂

Being out here on the prairie fills me with such peace. There is something about the plains that has always made sense to me. When I first encountered them in North Dakota back in 2005 I found myself wondering if it’s possible to come home to a place you’ve never been before. Everything out here is amplified: the blue of the sky, the warmth of the sun, the sound of the wind… Mornings and evenings are bitterly cold in the fall, but the days are hot. Yesterday in Moose Jaw, I could have have closed my eyes and sworn I was in Las Vegas in June, it was that dryly hot out.

Regina is a nice little city, comparable to Winnipeg. It confirmed to me what it is exactly that makes Winnipeg so special to me as Regina has all the same criteria but one, no strong French community.

The ideal year, it would seem, would be a summer spent in the Prairies, an early fall spent on the Shield, and then a winter somewhere warm and dry.

I cannot believe that I am already a full two weeks into my adventure and that I need to be in British Columbia no more than three weeks from now! I want to spend two nights in Saskatoon and two each in Edmonton and Calgary, so that’s another week eaten up, not counting travel time between the cities. And I thought I’d have time to go to Yellowknife! *laughs* I don’t mind being ‘stuck’ in Regina an extra night or two, but I really hope to be gone by Saturday just because I’m getting to be a little too comfortable here! But after the last two weeks of learning and driving so much, it’s nice to be parked somewhere for a spell and take some much needed time to breathe.

But the road beckons and I know that within the next day or so, I’ll be itching to leave. It’s lovely to know I can, and helps me to enjoy these peaceful moments even more.

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Land of Living Skies

First off, let me thank everyone who has commented in the past few days. I’ll answer each one of you. I’m having to rely on a free wi-fi signal provided in SK’s major centres which, unfortunately, is extremely slow. Combine that with the slowest laptop in the universe (doesn’t mean I don’t adore you, Bea!) and I’m keeping my surfing to the absolute minimum this week.

I’m posting from a coffee shop in Moose Jaw. The town opens really late, so I have about an hour to kill before I can start doing the tourist thing.

As it turns out, my location just outside of Regina is absolutely perfect. Moose Jaw is just an hour away, perfect for a day trip. Downtown Regina is barely 20 minutes away, so yesterday I was able to go out for the morning and part of the afternoon, go home for rest, then return in the evening to run some errands.

Monday in Regina is pretty much like Monday in Montreal, at least the way it was last time I was there on a Monday: just about everything of interest is closed. Fortunately, I’d done my homework and had a list of a few things that were open.

Joke was on me when I woke up at 7 yesterday. Saskatchewan has its own time rules, the details of which are fuzzy at present, but it turned out that even though I was still on central time, it was a whole hour earlier than I realised! I was pretty shocked when I got my bill at the pancake house and saw that it was 8AM, not 9AM as I’d thought!

The first thing I dealt with was mail. Being in Regina for the week and being willing to extend my stay if Canada Post is a bit slow, I felt that this was the perfect time to have some mail forwarded to me.

Then, I headed to the Regina Cemetery. Cemeteries are usually one of the first places I visit when I get to a new city. You can tell so much about a community by walking among its dead–what they believed in, what they fought for, what they fought against, major calamities, hierarchical divisions… At this cemetery I was must struck by the fact that simple wooden crosses sat next to large granite stones and by the number of graves belonging to soldiers killed during the Korean ‘police action.’

Next stop was the Royal Saskatchewan Museum, the quintessential natural history museum found in most cities. I found this one to be particularly good, with interactive displays and audio that complemented printed information.

The RSM is located on the shores of Wascana Lake, a beautiful urban playground with paths for running, jogging, walking, bike riding, etc. I walked around there for a spell and went to see if the science museum was open (no). So, I returned to downtown for an hour and checked out a few antique shops (it’s so easy to resist temptation when you live in an RV!).

Which brings me to this glorious sunny prairie morning in Moose Jaw. I have a full day of activities planned and tons of photos to share. Stay tuned. 🙂