Our Trip to Canada

< June 6^th | Index | June 8^th >

June 7^th, 2008: Day 2

Day two began with a nice breakfast at the “C’mon Inn,” which consisted of self-made waffles and gigantic bagels (it was either that or moldy English muffins). After eating, we made our way out of the Inn and to the nearby Travel Info station, only to find our packed Subaru friend stopped at the same place!

After taking spy photographs of this subject, we traveled northward towards the Canadian border after leaving Fargo and an hour or two later we arrived there and began the process of crossing it.

Once we had successfully passed the Canada/US border, Winnipeg was just a few hours away. Along the route to Winnipeg, it was completely flat farmland, a definite change from the US. When we saw the city in the distance, it was a huge relief, as we were getting a bit lonely…

We stopped at a Subway and Tim Horton’s for food when we arrived in Winnipeg, and after eating our first Canadian lunch, we went shopping at a place called Safeway, which is essentially identical to the Chicago area Dominick’s; and we found a processed Ditto! (right).

We then moved on to a Canadian McDonalds, which I nickname a McMaple, for it has a small maple leaf in the M of the logo. While in the McDonalds parking lot, I spotted some nice seagulls and took out my camera.

When we had finally finished running around the Winnipeg outskirts, which we thought was actually the downtown area, we decided to move on to the next city. On our way out of Winnipeg, however, we started seeing nice houses and communities – as it turns out, we didn’t actually go anywhere close to the good part of town, which we still consider a mistake; we judged a book by its cover.

We wanted to get to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, next, so we started driving that direction, through vast expanses of nothing… and out in the middle of nowhere, we found a tiny gas station where we were surprised to see a guy come out and pump our gas for us; I also found my first taste of Blue Bubblegum Jones Soda.

Just when we were leaving the gas station, it started to downpour and after 15 minutes or so of rain, it suddenly stopped… we looked behind us and saw an absolutely breathtaking rainbow.

We decided after seeing the rainbow that it was getting too late to be able to get to Saskatoon before nightfall, so we began to search for a town to stay in… we ran across a town called Neepawa in Manitoba that looked big enough to have some good places to stay. We spotted a tiny inn on the side of the road, so Ruth stepped out to see if it was acceptable… she came back with quite possibly the most disgusted look on her face, and we instantly knew that we should keep looking.

We then located a small inn called Bay Hill Inn, which looked very nice. It turns out it used to be a Super 8, renamed under new ownership, and it had a pool. We said it was a go, and jumped in the pool before settling down for the night.
And what a good sleep it was.

< June 6^th | Index | June 8^th >