Wind bloody wind

We made a leisurely departure from Regina yesterday.  We used to be so good at getting on the road early in the morning but now we’re lucky if we see pavement before 10.  By the time we got around Regina and then stopped for a 2nd check on the wheel seal we didn’t really go very far in the morning.  We ended up stopping for lunch at some shore bird museum in Chaplin.

Neither one of us is much for looking at birds unless they have been basted for a couple of hours in the oven so we didn’t do much more than eat lunch and bugger off.  We did climb up the steps to the viewing platform and have a look at the tailings pile from the sodium sulphate mine.

Its hard to get a sense of the scale of the tailings pile but the D8 provides some perspective.   Its not a particularly attractive part of Saskatchewan so the tailings pile doesn’t look all that much out of place.  There’s a lot of alkali sloughs in southern Saskatchewan – this just looks like one that got a little carried away with itself.  Chaplin may not actually be the arsehole of Saskatchewan but I’m pretty sure its a local phone call from there.

We got as far as Medicine Hat and parked on the old Wallymart lot.  I’m not 100% sure where the new Wallymart is now but the old store is still vacant and the lot is used by various truckers that need a place to park for the night.  Marlan came to have supper with us – he was the only one of the boys in town last night.  RJ is helping his uncle finish up mudding the crop in at Fox Valley and Michael is in search of love in Ft. Mac.  The story of how he met the woman he is visiting is too bizarre to tell here.  I have no reason to doubt what Marlan told us but if I were to retell it I would be accused of making it up so you’ll have to get it straight from Michael. 

The twins are only days away from leaving for New Mexico with a crew of custom combiners.  Marlan passed his 1A earlier this week in preparation for the trip.  From New Mexico they will go through Oklahoma, Kansas, the Dakotas & Montana.  Michael did the trip last year; Marlan is clearly looking forward to this year’s adventure.

Today we fought the wind west to Lethbridge and settled into one of our membership parks at Bridgeview.  Its a very scenic spot but the 50+ MPH winds are really annoying.  I have always had a low tolerance for wind.  I spent 2-1/2 years living in Regina and hated every windy minute of it.  We look out our front window at the Old Man River and hope that tomorrow won’t be so bloody miserable that we don’t want to venture outside.