June 4, 2019
What a night we had! As we were getting ready for bed last night, Lynn thought we should put the rain fly on the tent just to be safe. Thank God we did. By about 11pm, that storm that had been following us for the past 2 days suddenly showed up. With a vengeance.
By prairie standards, I don’t know if this was a big storm or not but by our standards, it was a DOOZEY! The thunder rumbled in the distance and then crept closer and closer and then the rain started. And then it picked up. And THEN - all hell broke loose. The lightning lit up the sky like fireworks and went off continuously for over an hour. It crashed and boomed, it cracked and sizzled. The wind whipped and the rain came down in a torrential downpour. It went on like this, unabated, until 1am.
Luckily, we were snug as little bugs in our pop up tent trailer and that rain fly kept us dry. We eventually fell asleep and woke up to sunny skies and a sopping wet world. Lynn thought, after the fact, that it would have been cool to put a cup out on the picnic table to see how much rain fell. Turns out, we didn’t need the cup! The storage tub we have our camp kitchen in has holes where the handles attach to the lid. We discovered this when we went to make coffee. Absolutely everything was drenched (all our tea towels, wash clothes, BBQ lighters - the entire contents of the camp kitchen!) and there was about 3/4” of water in the bottom. Now we know! The plastic tub that looks like it should be water proof most definitely ISN’T.
By the time we dried everything off and got it all back together, we were late getting on the road so it was just as well we had a shorter way to go today. Before we left Neepawa, we took a few minutes to seek out the home of Margaret Laurence who was a well known Canadian author who wrote (among other things) The Stone Angel. She was the recipient of two Governor General Awards, was awarded the Companion of the Order of Canada, established the Writers’ Trust of Canada and, in 2016, was designated a National Historic Person. How could we not go see her house? It’s a lovely brick home originally built by her grandfather. While we were there, a bus load of people were on a guided tour.
From here, we headed towards Highway 1 and Winnipeg. Leaving Neepawa, we were met with the odious scent of their massive hog processing plant on the outskirts of town. What is even MORE odious is the stench of the hog trucks themselves. We met many on their way to and from the plant and Sweet Mary, Mother of God, the schtank almost makes you gag and lingers in the air for a kilometre or more. Ugh...
Anyway - We weren’t sure what to expect as far as city traffic in Winnipeg but we got onto the Perimeter Road and were surprised by how little traffic there was. This was good because there was quite a bit of construction on the road. Heading east, towards Ontario, the land flattened out again into far reaching prairie. Most homesteads have great stands of trees and bushes surrounding the perimeter of 3 or 4 acres, creating sheltered areas for houses, shops, grain silos, gardens and yards. I would imagine that they also provide some sense of “containment” or boundaries in an otherwise boundless land that is only otherwise held together by great ribbons of asphalt , rail tracks, hydro lines and telephone wire.
Our destination was Whiteshell Provincial Park today, on the eastern edge of Manitoba. We made it in good time and we have almost the entire park to ourselves. We’re staying at Falcon Lake and the beach is beautiful. There are walking trails all through the area and a little fishing jetty.
Oh! Not to forget, wishing Erica and Naomi a very happy birthday today and happy anniversary to Mark and Tania. XO
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