4th leg - Saskatoon and Winnipeg

Losing it

The past day or two has been fun, but full of minor disappointments. We're losing things.

First, we left the rice milk behind in Edmonton - an important food for Eric and Sue, and difficult to find in small towns. Sue's hat seems to have disappeared. Worst of all, Bob threw out our next train tickets with a bunch of old papers in Drumheller. Then we left one of our metal water bottles in Saskatoon. Lastly, we are all losing a little sleep, due to a noisy stag party at the hotel in Saskatoon (in the room next door!) Bob phoned over to their room at 3:45, asking them to keep it down. They took the hint.

Saskatoon

Saskatoon was a short over-night, but we did have time to drive around downtown. The bridges are beautiful, and I'm told it's because of them that this town has been referred to as the "Paris of the Prairies". A few years ago when in Saskatoon, Bob wandered across a bridge and ate in an amazing Chinese food restaurant. Due to the fact that our first choice of restaurant was closed for the season, and the second choice did not exist in this province, we found ourselves driving over all the bridges we could find hunting this restaurant down. We found it! The food was great, but unfortunately re-wrote Bob's 'super-fantastic food' memory of this place.

Winnipeg

Our train trip to Winnipeg was fairly uneventful, but Sue did enjoy the views of prairie field after prairie field. She'd never been to the prairies before! (Mom, if you're reading this, no I don't remember going when I was under 2, if I did, and that's what you are about to say...) The kids and I read two books of interest on the train. One was a book about a prairie school boy out of a Canadian series called Canadian Flyer. (Similar to Magic Tree House but with the unfortunate literary device of a magic sled that carries children to different times and places. Unlike the treehouse, the kids have to cart the darn thing around with them!) The other was a small non-fiction but very entertaining book about 10 prairie animals. Once we got to Winnipeg the kids happened to see stuffed versions of these 10 animals in the museum! It was great. They also saw some of the things discussed in the first book. It was a good parenting moment. (On the other hand, I hid my head as a parent when Eric said his favourite part of the whole museum was the leaf-shaped cushions you could sit on.)

A friend of my mother's was very keen to show us around her fair city. She met us at the Forks market, and showed us some exhibits there, and then accompanied us to the Museum of Manitoba. Both were excellent, highly recommended if you find yourself close to Winnipeg. The other day we spent at the Children's Museum, which was great fun for the kids.

The best part about our stay in Winnipeg was the HOTEL ROOM. wow. By celestial benevolence, somehow, we got upgraded to a luxury suite. It was fabulous. Right downtown, view over the city streets, almost like a full apartment. What a treat!

I'm writing this on our flight home. Check out this video of what teenagers do in Winnipeg...

See you all soon!

3rd leg - Alberta

In Edmonton we dropped Karolin off at work and borrowed her car to visit the Telus world of science. (Joey would like to mention that there were computers there. :) ) Navigating the streets of Edmonton is like driving in Mississauga. 2-3 lanes everywhere, divided medians, 70 + speed limits, and not a bike lane to be found.

The science centre, however, was fantastic! A mechanical ball run, similar to the one at the Toronto science centre, amused the two boys for extended periods. A crime solving exhibit was amazing. I've never seen an 'exhibit' like this. The kids 'collected clues' at the crime scene, 'analysed' them in the crime lab, and submitted the evidence in the police station to the prosecutor. The science centre must have co-opted CTV, who provided some very real looking news footage throughout this exhibit. I hope that 'Tornado', the dog-napped weather wonder dog is eventually recovered!

Aug 13 - Sue's birthday!

I was overwhelmed that my friend Karolin, who put us up in her fabulous town house in Edmonton, insisted on baking me a gluten and dairy free birthday cake. She had even done her research, calling around town to find the right store. What she ended up putting together was fantastic - two fluffy layers, glaze pouring bountifully off the top and dripping down the sides, with vanilla-toasted almonds on top. What a treat! She also bought me my favourite ice cream (soy-based) and cut me fresh flowers!

On the next day, we said good-bye to Karolin's beautiful house (Eric and Joe said good-bye to her fun cats too), rented a car, and drove to Drumheller. This is a town known for its dinosaur bones and cheesy dinosaur sculptures on every other street corner, but it has a special meaning for Sue and Bob.

Way back in 1997, Sue had a job interview in Drumheller. It probably would have been a good job, but she'd met this guy in Waterloo a few months before, and she wasn't sure whether she wanted the job or the guy. Clever guy, he tracked down her number in the Best Western Drumheller "just to say hi, and wish her good luck in her interview". Yeah right, the last thing he wanted, actually. But that did the trick, and of course she took the guy, not the job.

Eric and Joe saw a completely different side of Drumheller; the usual side of dinosaur bones and tacky sculptures. Here they are standing in front of the World's Largest Dinosaur, or rather the World's largest dinosaur-shaped tourist trap that you can climb up for $3/person and look out through its cement jaws.

The Royal Tyrrell Museum is a much better deal, and worth every minute that we spent there. It had a recent multi-million dollar renovation, and its displays of hundreds of dinosaur skeletons are even more amazing than ever. Eric was able to name many of them, and delighted in photographing every ... single ... skeleton.

And on to Saskatoon we drove, for an overnight stay. Stop in Rosetown if you do this drive. It's a long trip, and Rosetown is clever to put a fun little mini-golf course at the visitor info center.

2nd leg -- travelling....

We convinced Aunt Lynne to travel with us for our first day up-island. :) So this gave us an extra day with her, which was lovely. The kids serenaded her with their church songs from the back seat. "Goats on the Roof" is a gimmick that a market in Coombs has used for a number of years to lure tourists off the main highway. (There are green roofs over this vegetable market, which are maintained by a small goat herd.) Over the years this has blossomed into a huge tourist intersection/village, which was quite packed. It made a nice half-way point for a picnic lunch.








An overnight in Courtenay, BC and then a bus ride up to the very tip of the island, Port Hardy. Port Hardy was, in a word, very ORGANIZED. They made sure everybody had a place to stay the night and a ride to the ferry in the morning. So friendly, too. Looking like confused tourists on the street, people would stop and ask if they could help us... :) We enjoyed the most amazing Chinese food and fish and chips. Botanical highlights include a monkey puzzle tree, and a meter wide fallen stump in an old-growth wooden area beside the local highschool. The young, slightly confused, caucasian Chinese food waitress gave us a great trip quote: "If I understand (the Chinese cook) correctly, we are all out of steamed rice." Huh?




We boarded the brand new, German-built engineering marvel "The Northern Expedition" at 5:45am. It was beautiful!! The kids headed straight to the 'playground' area... and befriended some other kids, playing pirates and watching Treehouse. This boat was also equipped with a cafeteria ($8.00 sandwich, $11 breakfast), white-linen restaurant (I don't want to know), small theater, sun deck, and the trip had lots of whales to spot.





























Every trip has at least one bum-hotel, and we hit this in Prince Rupert... Prince Rupert is completely unwalkable (at least to and from ferry and VIA terminals) and so my advice would be to get a nicer place to stay, regardless how far away it is from the dock. The first sentence out of the hotel concierge's mouth was something about how if we had called the hotel directly we could have saved money and gotten a much better rate. Not great words of welcome to Prince Rupert!! It was 11pm, after a stinky wait at a ugly ferry terminal for a cab ! (Why do coach buses always idle??)

Things improved the next morning with our VIA trip. Although we weren't traveling in "totem class", we heard all about it. (Please return from the viewing lounge to your seats for your champagne breakfast.. blah blah blah.) We had a fabulous time, thanks to a wonderful french Canadian hostess, 'Louise' who made sure everybody had what they needed and didn't take any crap from anyone. This train trip, compared to the train from Vancouver, seemed like a great call. 2 days, no nights, not crowded, stunning rugged mountains and glacial rivers abounding. Our 4-seater spot came with a table, complete with CHECKER squares printed on it!! We rounded up enough dimes, nickels, toonies etc to represent rooks, knights, bishops, and played chess. Our kids were great and we particularly enjoyed meeting some of the other folks
traveling with us, including the most darling 2 year old native girl that our boys doted on. She was so adventurous she sat on our laps, rearranged the boys' chess coins, and eagerly knocked down the card towers the boys made for her. We were so sad our camera's battery died and we didn't get her on film.

Our night in Prince George was a huge improvement over Prince Rupert. I liked Prince George – it seemed so familiar. In the plains (a break from the mountains), a mid-sized town, with a struggling downtown. Very friendly again!

As the train rolled in to Jasper, the views were amazing. Jasper was breath-taking, but very busy. So many European tourists as well as us Canadians! We heard about 5 different languages. Sue's stomach was starting to feel the effects of 4 days on the road, so we were glad we opted for the room with a kitchen. Bonus: our room overlooked the pool -- so once the kids were in bed, we snuck out to the hottub, keeping our eye on them through the window! I'll attach some views from around Jasper, we took a tram to the top of Mt. Whistler and hiked close to the summit, coming back through some snow fall.....

First leg -- visiting with Family

For those of you interested enough in our trip to endure my uninspired prose, here goes:

Our first evening was a great visit with Lindi and Dan in London. Jack and Rebecca were so enthralled to guinea-sit for us that they made a maze-run for them out of wooden blocks. We were happy to visit with other guinea pigs while away! Eric found the individual t.v.'s on the back of the airplane seats quite appealing!

On arrival to Victoria Robin kindly picked us up at the airport in a Honda Accord that we briefly owned, inherited from Bob's grandfather until Robin and Sharon had need of it. There it was in the parking lot, the body in the same condition that we left it in, 4 years ago, in true West-coast fashion. The plates blew us away – 898 GPA, Gpa being our family nickname for Grandpa. Robin said that the license office just handed it to him that way!!!! Gpa lives on.

Symphony Splash is where the Victoria symphony boards a barge and provides a free concert, to 40 000 folks assembled on blankets and lawn chairs around the harbour. We sat on the lawn of the legislature and watched it slowly illuminate as the darkness fell – slightly resembling the Taj Mahal! Our kids loved playing card games with Ross and Mimi, their 2nd cousins. We stayed up 21 hours that day, considering we had an early flight, 3 hour time warp, and a late fireworks-filled evening. Here is a pic of Eric and Mimi getting silly in the blankets waiting for the pyrotechnics to begin!

Also in Victoria , we enjoyed a wonderful afternoon at the 'Shaw ocean discovery centre', where the kids got to identify, touch and squirm in the face of octopi, crabs, jelly fish etc.

We loved having a beach day on the ocean – watching Mimi and Ross challenge each other to go deeper and deeper into the frigid ocean water. It was so fun to hang out with these guys – wonderful kids, soon to grow up completely and be fabulous adults. Our kids enjoyed a little Ross-worship, too (he's 12) or more particularly his skills on his DS... Sharon also treated us to a large dinner with the whole Victoria crew of cousins and Aunt Lynn. It was great to connect with everybody. Here is the family gathered around Ross and Mimi's guinea pigs.

We finished our Victoria leg with a rare night out – watching a 5 story tall Captain Kirk on the local IMAX screen. And now we were ready to begin our next leg -- the slow way to Jasper.