OFF LINE ENTRY

Kramer Municipal Park Campground

Battleford, Saskatchewan

Thursday, September 4, 2008, 8:40 pm Central Time

Mixed clouds and sun, except for one brief shower;  sun setting now.  Temperature:  56F

We left Athabasca, Alberta, this morning about 8 am Mountain Time and drove through dark spruce woods, by fields of new-mown hay and grazing cattle, and around quiet, cold lakes. In a few hours, the land opened up and became more fields than woods, more farming and ranching than forestry.  Then, coming over a rise, we had to hit brakes for a large truck with flashing warning lights and just ahead, a house! Yes, a house mover was taking up the entire road--both lanes and both shoulders--to move an intact fairly new house down the road.  After some minutes, the house pulled over at a farm road crossing and allowed us to pass and shortly up the road we came to another truck with flashing lights holding the oncoming traffic.  Something a little different.

By early afternoon we had reached Lloydminster, Alberta-Saskatchewan--it’s exactly on the border with half of the city in one province, half in the other.  We stopped at the Saskatchewan Welcome Center to find it closed (summer hours end with Labor Day in these parts), but there was plenty of room in the parking lot to stay and have lunch in the camper.

We also needed to attend to Charley, who had apparently eaten something that didn’t agree with him (some new rawhide chews are the chief suspect).  He had us up at 4:30 am asking to go out, and then he promptly showed diarhhea followed by vomiting.  By first light he seemed okay, but after riding in the car all morning with only one break, he was again asking to go out, and again showed the same symptoms.  We continued on to Battleford, Saskatchewan, and arrived at a nice city-run campground about 4 pm Mountain Time (but we think we are now in the Central Zone).  Charley seems to be fine, has had no more symptoms, and after eating some kibble and drinking water, he seems to be on the mend.  In fact, he’s shown signs of playfulness.  They do recover quickly.

Tomorrow it’s another boring day of prairie driving across Saskatchewan--North Battleford, Saskatoon, Regina, etc.  We hope to get near to the Manitoba border by day’s end and have already picked out a couple of likely places to stop for the night.