Gr@y & Blue Fall Road Trip 39

Today was a slow and easy start with a nice frittata cooked by Kathleen and a walk in the neighbourhood for Yolanda, Kathleen and Andrew. 

What a darling Andrew is and what great parents Kathleen & Jon are. We feel privileged to have seen them all.

We didn't get far driving today, due in part to the foggy weather in the mountains and in part to highway construction.

We stopped in Revelstoke to eat dinner and to stay for the night, with new plans to get to the Kelowna Art Gallery by about 2pm Friday, as we might not have a chance to get there on the weekend and they are closed Monday.

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The birds were tucked away out of the wind this morning after enduring 90K gusts in the past 12hrs so we didn't see any on our daybreak Rosetown walk with Shirley S.

Our travels today were from Rosetown, Saskatchewan to Calgary, Alberta, which, door-to-door is about 525Kms. With road construction, gas breaks and our grocery pick-up needs for making dinner at niece Kathleen & nephew-in-law Jon's place took about 7hrs. We were surprised to see melted snow banks by the side of the road.

We were pleased to find an Italian market not far from K&J's and very near the butcher where Bob found and ordered nice chickens. After a visit with our newest nephew Andrew, together with Kathleen, Yolanda made a yummy roast chicken & gnocchi dinner and Kathleen's mom, sister-in-law Sara brought along a "lemon surprise" chocolate dessert.

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Driving from Regina to Rosetown took us Northwest into a new-to-us section of Saskatchewan. 

This was up towards Saskatoon, and deep into farm land. We are awed by the scale of the landscape and compelled by the subtle, vibrant shards of colour.

As we approached Rosetown, Bob caught snaps of snowgeese and pronghorn and we saw our first wheat chaf fogs, which were high plumes due to the winds (up to 90km gusts overnight).

We were welcomed warmly into the home of Shirley S. and with her we visited the studio of fabric artist Anne Rice. We walked in the neighbourhood, enjoyed a delicious home-cooked meal by Shirley and shared stories over tea. We went to sleep early as we had plans with Shirley to go out early to maybe see some local birds.

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We ended our day in Regina and at a Super 8 instead of a camp. Bob says "we owe it to Regina to stay in a hotel here", indicating that we left and arrived via Regina on our 2016 and 2017 bike-across-Canada trips, but didn't actually stay in Regina; Yolanda days "yippee!". Our day of driving from Kenora and the very beautiful Lake-of-the-Woods to Regina included side-stops at Pipestone & Reston to look for maternal heritage evidence for Bob.

We didn't locate headstones, but Bob was able to see a bit of the countryside where his mom's ancestors settled. We also saw a moose, a fox, a muskrat/beaver, a hare, and several en masse flocks (geese, red wing blackbirds, etc).

Near to Regina, as the sun set, there was a lot of smoke in the air due to burning fields, which Bob said were prescribed. We enjoyed a pleasant day of driving and a nice evening of discussion.

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We woke to frost on the ground at Anicinabe Park in Kenora.

We showered in the frigid stalls of the "comfort" station, tucked wet hair into toques, and layered up long johns, fleece, and rain/wind gear to be warm on our Lake-of-the-Woods paddle.

It was a brief hour out and quick 1/2 hr back, with winds and white-caps at our back. Due to the rough weather, our plan for an afternoon paddle morphed into a few hours of laundry and administration.

We reflected on our 2016 time in Kenora on our bike trip as it was also an administrative stop as we had mailed home our bike camp gear from Kenora. We ended our day blogging at the Kenora recreation centre and then went out for nachos & beer at Lake-of-the-Woods Brewing (where we had lunch in 2016 biking!).

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Similar to yesterday's double-drive-day that allowed us to stay in Algonquin an additional day previous, today was another double-drive-day from Goulais River to Kenora, so that we could enjoy a day off from driving to canoe on Lake-of-tlhe-Woods, by Kenora.

So, it was 100kms, snack, w/c, gas; 300kms, snack, w/c, gas; 300kms, snack, w/c, gas; 300kms, snack, w/c, gas;  150kms, set-up camp at Anicinabe Park, sleep. Phew! If we had been on our bikes, we would have taken a million pictures today.

The light was fantastic today, as it was on a unique angle that made the landscape glow and threw shadows across the trees in a way that highlighted the bark and coloured leaves. At one point today, out from a forest dirt road onto the secondary highway we were on descended a pick-up truck with two day-glow cap and jacket hunters. We had wondered in the past weeks about why so many camp-grounds were closed now and seeing those capped and robed hunters suddenly made the closures make sense, as there was no way their glowing bulk would be mistaken for a moose, elk, or deer - but we might be! We arrived at Anicinabe Park in Kenora at about 10pm and were pleased to find a nice spot for two nights.