Sunday, June 13

What a difference a day makes. Yesterday we drove in rain and 54 degrees and today we drove most of the day in gorgeous 65 to 68 degrees with no wind (with the exception of the last 1-1/2 hours, but we'll talk about that later).

Before I go on to anything else, I must address the picture of me yesterday with all the rain gear on. First of all, yes that is our rain gear -we don't dress that way just to look like crazy people. The difference in the reactions you get from people depending on what you have on is comical. With the rain gear on, they look at you and you can read their minds as they're thinking, "You poor crazy person and what the heck are you wearing that for?" Then, when you have all the leather on (coats, chaps, gloves, black boots, etc.), they look at you and think "Nice." Funny.

So we left Winipeg at 7:15 am after having a quick free breakfast at the hotel. We saw lots of Winipeg - our hotel was downtown and we had to go through basically most of the city to exit the other side of town to connect with our highway. One thing I'll say about the people in Winnipeg, they were very friendly, nice people. So, off we go. As I said, we drove about 6-1/2 hours in absolutely gorgeous weather. Sunny, cool to warm (cool is fine - remember I have the heated jacket) and no wind. However, the last 1-1/2 hours of drive time decided to counteract the nice weather. It was still a great temperature, but the wind was frightening. I have no idea how fast it was blowing, but I figure when the bike is 5 to 10 degrees off of vertical leaning in to the wind to keep it on the road, that means it's pretty windy. Then, in the middle of absolutely nowhere (no trees, no farms, no nothing - there's a lot of that here), we got a gust of wind that took us from one side of our lane to the other. Good thing Duane is an experienced driver - I'd hate to be behind a novice when that happened. And what did I do? Well, I just did my job (and did it quite well may I add) and I just sat!

So, what did we see today? For a while, it was the same as yesterday - that would be miles and miles of land. It's really flat for a lot of the way. Then you have this section of very unusual landscape that's flat with all kinds of little pools of water and marshy stuff all over just plunked right in the middle of the flat. There are ducks, ducks and more ducks. I guess this is a big nesting area - I can see why. Also, they have tons of rocks all over the land they are trying to farm (like the river rock we use to landscape). To me it looked like when God threw all the stars into the sky, He gave the angels a bunch of rocks and they threw them all in this area of Canada. It would drive the farmers in Minnesota and Iowa crazy.

So, we arrived at Chaplin's Country Bed & Breakfast at 5:30 p.m. It's gorgeous and full of antiques - gotta love that! It's out in the country and surrounded by trees and some farm animals and it's just what we needed - peaceful and quiet.

Did you know? We are getting the idea that in Canada they use llamas for protection animals rather than dogs. We have seen lots of llamas on ranches. My dad told me one time they use them to protect the livestock because they are not afraid of coyotes. Anyway, we drove past this one place that manufactured big equipment, and they had all their equipment surrounded by a big fence. What would you expect to see inside such a fence to protect the equipment? A dog? Well, you're wrong - they had a llama.

As far as wildlife, we saw 2 coyotes, a few deer as well, as well as a multitude of other ducks and birds. Oh, and for you "foodies," pretty boring - just had A&W (delicious - I forgot how much I love their onion rings) and Subway.

Well, that's it for today. Thanks for checking and thanks for the prayers.

Gayle - BOTB