OFF LINE ENTRY

Acininabe Campground

Kenora, Ontario

Saturday, September 6, 2008, 7:00 pm Central Time

Sun setting after a late afternoon shower, temperature, 55F

Another all-day drive across the prairies and near the end we ducked into the trees of eastern Manitoba and extreme northwestern Ontario.  Lots of lakes, rock outcroppings, and finally, trees, trees, trees.  When we reached Ontario we thought we were “back East,” but we’re only as far east as Minnesota, and we still have a way to go to get back into the Eastern Time Zone.  The day was rather uneventful, mostly farm country, good road and little traffic, and the skyline of Winnipeg in the distance as we took the by-pass to save time.  We are now camped on the shores of the Lake of the Woods in the outskirts of Kenora;  very pretty.  Tomorrow, we hope to get to Thunder Bay on Lake Superior and we may stay there a couple of nights to rest up.  We need a day off.

This campground has a WiFi, but you need to go to the office to use it--it doesn’t reach very far.  So, after listening to the Garrison Keillor show on satellite radio (it was a tape of his August show from the Champlain Valley Fair in Vermont), I plan to walk over to get on line.

OFF LINE ENTRY

Fieldstone Campground

Moosomin, Saskatchewan

Friday, September 5, 2008, 5:30 pm Central Time

A mix of sun, dark clouds, and occasional rain;  temperature:  55F 

(Local radio says we are under a tornado watch, but conditions are “weakening.”)

We arrived here a few miles short of the Manitoba border about 5 pm--a long, fairly boring, but ultimately uneventful day of driving.  We left the city park campground in Battleford, Sask., this morning about 8 am and stopped by the entrance station at the park to pay our bill.  No one was there.  There was no one there when we came in yesterday afternoon, and no one was there when we checked after dinner last night. In fact, there was only one other campsite occupied in the whole campground, and we never saw any people there. The sign on the entrance station door said “Return at 5:30 pm,” but I don’t think anyone ever did.  I could almost hear the “Twilight Zone” theme playing in the background.  Anyway, we never did pay our $20 for the campsite and we used their electricity (the only hookup), but if they don’t want our money, should we feel guilty?  Will the Mounties be after us (and you know the Mounties always get their man!).

Saskatchewan is farm and ranch country,with a healthy dose of oil and gas extraction and potash and uranium production going on.  The economy seems similar to Montana or the Dakotas (and why not, they are next door).  The land is gently rolling to flat as a pancake, and trees are rare and usually planted around farm houses as a wind break.  The largest building in any town is the grain elevator and you can spot them on the flat terrain many miles before you actually reach the town. We both agreed that living here would drive us crazy--too monotonous, too hot in the summer/too cold in the winter, too far from anything.

We are now close to Manitoba in a semi-nice campground with full hookups about a mile north of the Trans-Canada Highway at Moosomin, Saskatchewan.  There is even a small copse of trees around us. We have cellphone service, but to get on the web we need to walk down to the office-store complex and use their very weak wi-fi.  We may do that after dinner, but otherwise, we’ll try to get a real wi-fi hookup tomorrow night in northwestern Ontario.