Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan

Yep that really is the name of a town, quite a nice one actually. I have it on good authority in spite of what this website says that it's name is derived from a Cree Indian phrase that meant "I have no idea why you stopped here either". But nevertheless that is where we are tonight, with any luck at all we will be home tomorrow. Today we had a shorter day only traveled 268 miles, our shortest yet. We have been to Saskatchewan before as you can see from the attached photo but that time the grass was greener, but there was also more snow than this time. Spring is in the air or at least the snow geese are, there are thousands of them along the road resting on their journey to their Arctic nesting grounds.



Many folks will be wondering about our border crossing, well we made it, with our shrimp and even with some butter. Apparently the fact that Brenda is a well known butter importer did not register until we had left the crossing. And wouldn't you know it she didn't have much with her this time. We are planning on heading towards the Maritimes and the US NE in mid-August so we won't need a lot to last us through the four months we will be home.



And here is a shot of the giant moose that welcomes folks to Moose Jaw.















Now here is real proof that we are really back in Canada. These are on all the street corners and you can get a good honest cup of coffee for a decent price, none of that mocalattefrappcrappa stuff here. Just good coffee and of course a donut to help you enjoy it. And you don't need to mortgage the house to be able to entertain yourself and your friends here. And if you ever find one of these coffee shops without a car in the Drive Thru get a photo, nobody will believe you.

Big Trouble

Today we headed out of Yankton, South Dakota towards Jamestown, North Dakota a drive of around 330 miles. Just about right to keep me in Brenda's good books. Should have been there about 1:00PM. Along the way we found this sign and another state we had never been to together. That about covers what I would call the western states although there are still a few west of the Mississippi and in the East that we need to see.

But as you all know RV'ers plans are cast in Jello. After about 180 miles of perfect driving weather, cool and a south wind right on our tail pushing us along we had a high temperature warning. Got every thing stopped and checked around, lots of coolant, no belt issues and as we sat it cooled off pretty good. So we started limping along keeping a close eye on the temperature while phoning ahead to find a Cummins dealer. Well to make a long story short the problem seemed to go resolve itself about the same time we got a Cummins dealer in Minot, North Dakota to agree to have a look at it tomorrow morning first thing. Acts like the thermostat was hung up as for the last couple of hundred miles we were bucking a wind and moving right along with no heating issues at all. Hmmmmm, well we'll see what tomorrow morning brings. As we drove a long I saw a few things I didn't like, first the photo below shows a lot of snow still hanging around up here. And some of the lakes were still frozen over and a few of them had puzzled looking geese standing on the ice looking around, probably thinking about what they are going to do to Al Gore's (global warming) golf course next time they head south.

Oh yah, the big trouble, Brenda really doesn't like to travel much more than 300 miles in a day and we kind of stretched it to get to the Cummins facility here in Minot with a total of 499 today. That still puts us about 750 miles from home but God Willing and the creeks don't rise we should cross the border tomorrow.

Day 3 on the Northern Trek

Today we added a new state to our map and revisited one we have visited before, although we have the picture below that says welcome to Nebraska, it was taken in 2003 and we just darted over from Missouri to get a picture at Brownsville, Nebraska and then headed back to the Interstate to continue our drive north. So to make it real we took a drive through Nebraska today. Although we have given both Nebraska and Kansas a little bit of short shrift on this trip they both appear to be pretty nice country. The parts we drove through were pretty good agricultural land and there were lots of trees and windbreaks in evidence so it was a pretty pastoral scene that we were part of. There was a pretty strong crosswind for the entire drive today but the Powerbridge chassis that Freightliner has under our Discovery handled it quite nicely. We manage to travel right along with the smaller outfits and seem to have less problems than some other rigs. Here is the real shot we took today. Same beautiful co-pilot just a little different hairdo.

And below a shot from our last trip to South Dakota, the aforementioned old friend, to complete the set for today. We are staying at the Corps of Engineers "Cottonwood Campground" just west of Yankton, South Dakota. We managed to stake out a site without to many trees so our Star Choice dish is working here and the air card is keeping us on the net. There are campsites on both sides of the river here so whether you want to stay in South Dakota or go south to Nebraska the choice is yours. One nice surprise, apparently these sites are open all winter, with only power of course as the water is shut off, but until tomorrow they are free. After that I think with 30 Amp power they are $16.00.

Tomorrow we will continue our trip north across South Dakota and probably make it into North Dakota somewhere. That will put us on a schedule that should see us home sometime on Sunday.

Still Heading North

Today we left the Winstar Casino near Thackerville, Oklahoma and headed north about 7:00AM. Yep Deb there is a sunrise in the morning and we saw it. It was an uneventful drive up I-35 through Oklahoma City and Wichita, Kansas where we changed to I-135 to continue heading straight north to Salina, Kansas. We have been here, in the KOA, since about 2:00PM after covering 379 miles today. We had to get our laundry caught up and an early day was in the plan.



We have been watching the weather ahead of us with a lot of interest. It appears that it is likely there will be snow in Wyoming and Montana by the time we were to get there. Now that is not in the plan so like all good RV'ers we will change the plan and run pretty near straight north to the Canadian border. That should have us avoiding the worst of the weather and we'll drive home through the Saskatchewan sunshine rather than that cool NW US snow. It does add a few miles to our route though so instead of 2357 it is now 2381 miles to our gate. Well worth it to miss the snow. Also we'll be able to take advantage of the fact that Dennis and Denice will be a day or so ahead of us on the same route. That said our plans as always are cast in Jello so as we go we will adapt. The shot below will give an idea of the new route. Although we have never been to Kansas before we have a few friends here so Mac, Lynette, Rod and Loyce consider yourself waved at as we head north.

Texas in Our Rearview Mirror

Today we headed north and when we head north we get moving. We are now in Oklahoma at Joe's favourite spot, the Winstar Casino. That puts us 433 miles into a journey of 2357 miles. We let all our friends and readers know we were heading towards Fort Worth and lo and behold, Sheri left town, Joe went to work (he said) and Mark and Dortha headed for the East Coast or somewhere. Want your town cleared out, give us a call. No really we had a great day and will certainly miss all our Texan friends. And anybody who is wondering why the big traffic tie-up in I-35W south of Fort Worth, well we just had to get that picture of us above setting in the Blue Bonnets, sorry about tieing up the city but you know how it is. Tonight we went into the Stone Ranch room at the Casino to have our dinner. I had the Chicken Fried Steak, first time I have ever had that, and it was huge, the steak covered the whole plate by itself so I ate about half, Brenda had a few bites and we still have enough for our lunch tomorrow. Oh yah, and Brenda did contribute some money to the coffers of this establishment so we will not feel guilty about parking in their lot for the evening for free.

The map below has our tentative route on it. We are hoping to make Salina, Kansas tomorrow night.


Oh yah, Joe we started dropping Oreo cookie crumbs along the road where I-35E & W become I-35N again so you should be able to follow us right to our farm gate.

The route

Monday morning we begin our long journey home. It is a 2357 mile trip from our spot here at the Last Resort in Rockport to the gate at our farm near Cremona, Alberta. We will take pretty near a week to make the journey and are sure hoping the weather is going to cooperate. This has been a great trip this winter and we have met a lot of incredible people and made some friends that will last a long time. We are already planning our travels for next winter, God willing and the creeks don’t rise. The shot below is our entire travels for this 2008-2009 winter season. By the time we get home we will have traveled an incredible 7,072 miles with our new motorhome since we headed off over the Rockies last October 24th.

We are planning on hitting the road early and will try to get somewhere up around Fort Worth by tomorrow night.

Homeward Bound

This morning we headed out early and picked up another 20 pounds of shrimp and a dozen crabs for Rollie and Gina to take back to Houston with them. While Gina and I removed the faces from the shrimp Rollie cooked the crab, or at least tried, one of them made a break for it and was halfway across the campground by the time he was recaptured.

But eventually he met his destiny, as a snack for Gina, she does love her crab meat.

Once they got the crabs all cooked up we headed downtown for some Mexican food, but the Mexican folks obviously were home celebrating Easter as the restaurant was closed. We continued on to Alice Fay's restaurant and all took a break from our seafood binge and chowed down on Cheeseburgers. Now let me tell you these guys know how to make a Cheeseburger, it had all the trimmings, even some MYanaise, and must have been a half pound of meat at least all in a homemade hamburger patty and a great bun. Best bread we have eaten since we crossed the Medicine Line almost 6 months ago.

Once we got done gorging ourselves on those great Cheeseburgers we came back to the camp and Rollie and Gina proceeded to get their rig ready for travel. Once they were hooked up and had the pups loaded into the truck it was time to head out. Here is Angel wondering when they are going to get going and get done with all the goodbyes.

It is sad to see our friends head off but they have to get back to work and we will see them again next winter, till then travel safely and Vaya Con Dios.

And here is a shot of a butterfly that Rollie and Gina had for Brenda. Anybody who knows Brenda knows she collects butterflies and this is her first Texas one. Thanks a bunch guys this means a lot to her.