The south end of the beach at Hua Hin, Thailand.
Where are Kevin and Ruth now? Hua Hin, Thailand.

Where are Kevin and Ruth going next? Maldives on March 23rd.

Tuesday, April 29, 2014

Four months of nice weather.

That's all you get up here in the great white north of Canada. June, July, August, and September. Sure, you might get a couple of nice days in May and October, but really there's only four months that you can sort of count on.

Arriving here in April is most certainly too early!

Yesterday, we drove 476 miles (760 kms) from Grand Forks, North Dakota to Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan.

We knew we were in for a long driving day, so we got an early start. It was around 8:30am when we said goodbye to our couchsurfing host and her dog Sammy. Thanks for having us Debra!

Debra, Sammy, Ruth, and Kevin.

It was cold and windy, and pouring rain. The first two or three hours of our drive looked something like this...

Turn right in 274 miles!

The sign coming up to the town of Rugby, North Dakota says "The Geographical Center of North America". So we figured we had better stop for a photo op...

Rugby, North Dakota's claim to fame!

Not sure who did the math to figure out the geographical center of North America, but I guess when you look at the map, they're pretty close...

The middle of North America.

Somewhere in North Dakota.

Somewhere else in North Dakota.

The Canadian border.

Made it to the border at 2:30pm. Crossed the border, and it became 1:30pm! We gained an hour because Saskatchewan doesn't recognize daylight savings time.

The Canadian border guard asked us all of the usual questions. Including asking if we had done any vehicle repairs while in the states. When it came to booze, we had two opened 5 litre boxes of wine that we explained were about half full. Maybe a little exaggeration. Probably slightly more than half full. Also, our couchsurfing friends in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan had given us a bottle of their homemade wine, so we were over limit by quite a bit. But we were well under our purchase limit, and we weren't bringing in cigarettes, so he sent us on our way without any issue. Nice!

Oil, mining, and agriculture. Saskatchewan is booming!

Welcome to Canada. Hmph.

One for you, Sam.

Apparently the snow was totally gone when they had this big storm blow through and it dumped a bunch of wet white stuff just hours before we came through. You can see in the pics above that it was enough that they had to get the plow out on the highway. Yuck.

We pulled into Wendy and Phil's in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan at around 5:00pm, just as we planned. You might remember that we stayed with them last year at this time on our way up to Sturgeon Lake, and they had come to visit us there in their class B van for a few days as well. 

Wendy's daughter is visiting too, and she made us all a delicious dinner.

We got an email from Cabri Regional Park saying not to rush, and that we should arrive on Wednesday. It's only about a two and a half hour drive, so now we have a surprise day to relax. So we're going to stay in Moose Jaw one more night and head to Cabri tomorrow. Really excited to see where we're going to spend the next five months!

Yesterday's drive, 476 miles (760 kms).


19 comments:

  1. Exciting times ahead - can't wait to see what life in Cabri will be like. Enjoy your day!

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    1. Thank you Connie and Barry, we did enjoy our day.

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  2. Ah Moosejaw. My sister lived there once upon a time. Best not to be there in *actual* winter. Pretty bleak I hear. Raining like a sonofa...here.
    Enjoy your day.

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    1. Nope, don't think this is where we would want to be for the winter. Hope that rain has finally let up.

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  3. Lousy looking weather. April is definitely too early. But it will be nice when you guys reach Cabri and settle in.

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    1. The weather has improved and I don't think it will be long before we start getting beautiful weather. We are starting to settle in nicely here.

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  4. Relax for a day and enjoy it. Like Bob said rain, rain here.

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    Replies
    1. Hope you start to get some nice sunny weather.

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  5. Yes, we came back way too early from Mexico!! April has been horrible weather so far and now we are in for a week of rain.

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    Replies
    1. I guess next year you will need to plan to come back a little later. :-) Hope your weather improves soon.

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  6. We get alot more than 4 months of good weather over here on the BC Coastline (still in Canada eh)
    Don't miss that snow and horrible road conditions at all!
    It's spring over here with +20c temps in April. :)

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    Replies
    1. Disagree. Vancouver had many days of 10C-15C daytime highs in April.

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    2. I suppose it depends on what your definition of "good weather" is. Coming from the Prairies, this is great weather! I would take +10 over -20 any day.

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  7. Still a patch of snow in the parking lot here even though the temp. has been 13 the past 2 days!

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  8. Couldn't agree more about there only being 4 months of good weather, and yes, returning to Canada in April is FAR too early. Enjoy your extra day.

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    Replies
    1. Good thing that we go to places that have really nice winter time temperatures! :-)

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  9. We also came back to Kansas City too early (April 2) after spending the winter in the southern US. Although we've had some nice days in April, we've also had a dusting of snow and more chilly, gray days than we would like. I honestly don't know why anyone would live here year round unless they absolutely had to -- and Canada or North Dakota all the more!

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