Week 5 on the Road

This week's entry is being posted from Yorkton, Saskatchewan. We have traveled 6,130 kilometers since leaving our home in Millville Nova Scotia on May 8

June 3:

As we begin this week we have a slight dark cloud to deal with. The Emission system light on Sully (our 2016 Honda Pilot) has been glowing for 48 hours now. Long before we left home we had a similar issue, which the diagnosed as a problem with the catalytic converter. It is covered by warranty and the dealer thought it would be ok after a software update was done on the engine operating system. Anyway, we needed to get the brakes done on Sully and this week long stop in Winnipeg was going to be used for that. So, just one more issue to have fixed when we take Sully in on Wednesday. We have plans to drop the car off at 7:30am, get a ride downtown and use the day to wander the city and visit the Museum of Human Rights.

We cleaned up our laundry. Arrowhead RV Park has good facilities and we got it done right here at the campground. After lunch we did a 3 hour drive around the local area. This part of Manitoba is all flat, as far as you can see. Towns and individual houses have moats built around them for times of flood and river diversion channel are everywhere.

The weather is rapidly improving and we topped 26 degrees C today. Finally, a bit of heat.

June 4:

We started our day with a power walk. Jenny did her walk run routine while I just powered along at my walking pace behind here. We did our walk on the Red River Diversion Channel walkway, which provides 45 kilometers of walking/biking/running trails along the flood protection channel. Very nice walk. We are both feeling very fit at the moment and want to keep it that way.

It was also time to refill our propane tanks. We will be heading into wilder country in a few days and propane refills are often harder to find outside of main cities in Canada. We shopped for the next couple of days and returned to TaJ just as the full warmth of the sun landed on us. We actually took a bit of downtime in the HEAT of the day.

In the afternoon we took a bit of time to re-organize the load in Sully for the next phase of the trip. We needed to accommodate the still unused screen tent, which has been residing on the second row seats. The fact that the screen tent is still unused is a good thing. We expect to end the bug free existence in the next week so the thing will be going up, most likely at Riding Mountain NP

June 5

Well, Sully needed a fair amount of work, complete brake replacement and a new timing belt as we are rapidly approaching 100,000 kilometers on the odometer. The Honda dealer provides a free shuttle service for service clients and they dropped us at the Forks, where we had breakfast at the Pancake House, a Winnipeg eatery since 1964. Breakfast was adequate, but $36 is a lot to pay for one meal, when our daily food budget is $50. But hey, once in a while you need to treat yourself.

We went to the Canadian Museum for Human Rights. It is dedicated to the idea that "All Human Beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. Its location, at the forks of the Assiniboine and Red Rivers, a meeting place for as much as 6000 years is perfect. The building is a marvel:

The feature exhibit is Mandala: Struggle for Freedom. This exhibit outlines his life long struggle against apartheid in South Africa, where the white minority dictated how the black, Asian, and other non-whites should remain apart from the whites. Mandala's 27 year imprisonment is documented as well as his ultimate success in overcoming the repressive regime and bringing equality to the nation. Inspiring.

The museum has permanent exhibits covering the Holocaust, Truth and Reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples in Canada, and the various galleries outline the abuses of human rights in Russia and the Ukraine, Serbia, Myanmar and numerous others. The very scope of the violations of basic human dignity is relentless and at first, a bit depressing. But, as you walk through the museum, you begin to see the light...we need take care of all humans on the planet. It is really not an option. Even now, there are systemic rights abuses taking place, against the Royhinga in Myanmar, against the people of Darfur, Muslim majority, against Muslim minorities, Religion against Religion. It goes on and on it needs to stop.

We picked Sully up and returned to Arrowhead RV Park, where our travel buddies, George and Karmen had arrived with their Airstream and were parked next to us. We had a great reunion, although we have been following their adventures on Karmen's Blog " Reids on the Road" We met them on Newfoundland in 2013 and have met up with them 15 times at various points around North America. We will travel together for the next three weeks.

June 6:

While being in for repairs yesterday, it was decided that Sully's catalytic converter had to be replaced under warranty to solve our emissions system problem. Normally this would have been about a $1,300 repair bill, but under warranty, no charge. The Honda dealership just needed Sully back for three hours to do the job.

George picked us up at the dealer and off we went on a planned trip around to a few micro breweries in Winnipeg. George drove, I navigated and off we went, first up was the Half Pints Brewery, where we each chose a beer to sample (5 oz) and we all had a taste. Karmen likes IPA's Jenny and George tend towards the darker stouts, and I am a Golden or Red Ale kind of guy. So we get a good sampling of what each brewery has to offer.

We then tried Torque Brewing, where we did the same sort of thing. The employee behind the bar was pretty well disinterested in doing much to promote sales, so we had our samples and then exited without buying anything.

Our final brewery stop was the one with food service. Brazen Hall has a full service restaurant to go with its brewery. Each couple shared an order of chicken wings and a 10 oz glass of beer. Service was good and the beer very well done. By this time Sully was done with his repair job, so we picked him up, did some shopping in advance of our departure to Riding Mountain tomorrow.

Back at the campground, Karmen whipped up supper, chicken, potato salad and cucumber and tomato salad. When we travel together we do meals together. Karmen cooks one night, the next is mine and so on. We got our laundry up to date, as Riding Mountain does not have laundry facilities.

June 7

We drove 300 kilometers to Riding Mountain National Park, one of our country's finest nature areas. On the highway we saw a sign for the Farmery Brewery and we just knew our travel buddies would have been drawn there, like steel shavings to a magnet. Sure enough, there was George and Karmen's Airsteam in the parking lot.

The campground at Wasagaming is huge and at this time of year, pretty empty. The sites we had picked on-line several weeks ago turned out to be pretty crappy, but we parked anyway. What we could not see was that these sites were right along the highway. We'll move tomorrow to something better.

We walked into the townsite and went to the Visitor Centre to determine what we would like to do during our stay. The Bison heard is in a compound, about 30 kilometers away, at Lake Audy. Since the next day was going to be rainy, the chances of seeing the bison would be greatly enhanced. The Bison tend to stay in the woods during the sunny part of the day, but will come out in the rain.

Jenny and I did a long walk around the campground to loosen up the legs after a day in the car. It is huge, with over 500 sites in 7 different sections. While at it we checked out the washrooms and showers. The shower building near our site seemed to have little or no hot water, but we decided to shower anyway, much to our regret. Cool, verging on cold water. Well, we survived anyway!@

June 8

Sure enough, Saturday was cool and rainy and we headed off. with George driving, towards the Bison compound at Lake Audy. We saw a young moose along the road on the way out, but she quickly disappeared into the bush. We did get to see 3 large male Bison, up close and personal at the compound:

When we returned to the campground, we moved sites, next to one of the kitchen shelters that the park provides. Really nice addition to our stay was the space to be outside and still out of the rain. The woodstove was a really nice addition to our day.

June 9

George picked up a one day fishing license and was trying to catch us dinner for Sunday night (no luck) so Karmen, Jenny and I embarked on a hike on one of the trails at the park. We did a great 90 minute hike out to a lake.

We then took a drive to the East Gate of the park. It is the only remaining had built gate from the 1930's work programs that employed people during the great depression. It is a marvelous structure:

On our return trip we hit the highlight of our stay. A female bear was right alongside the road and we stopped. She stayed where she was looking us over. A real close-up:

We wondered if perhaps she was a bear that had been too close to humans and was no longer afraid of them. Then we found out why she was staying so close. Her babies! There were two of them but we only got a picture of this one>

June 10

We departed Riding Mountain about 8:30am this morning. Our destination for today is Moose Mountain Provincial Park, in the south eastern part of the province. We will spend this full week in the province and our next entry will come from Alberta in about a week's time..