We had big plans on Day 2, but I think our busy couple of weeks finally caught up with us. Curt woke up in the morning ready to go (so he said), but he did not look ready to go. I gave him a couple Tylenol and sent him back to bed. While he was snoozing, I was very productive. Not only did this time give me a chance to catch up on the blog, it also gave me a chance to get some of the small jobs that needed to get done. (This is the day I posted the Brandon post, paying for the WiFi). We had bought the “stuff” for the jobs along the way, but we haven’t had the time to do the tasks. So I installed a handle on my door, glued the trim on the bathroom doors, rearranged a couple of cabinets, and completely reorganized the underneath compartment so I didn’t have to put an empty cooler in and out of the camper at every site. I spent the rest of the day reading my book and catching up on the blog.
He got up after a few hours (I did check on him to make sure he was still breathing—neurotic nurse that I am—it is his left shoulder!) But I think being the only driver is taking a toll on his shoulder, tight muscles and grumpy attitude. He won’t tell me it hurts, he just tells me he will do whatever I want. Driving me crazy!!! But a relaxing day of no driving and early to bed as we only get limited TV channels, a French channel, a religious channel, and 3 public television stations.
Day 3 –Tuesday
Curt says he is feeling better, so we get up early and head out to the Assiniboine Zoo. It was the host’s recommendation to go see the polar bears and she told us to get there early to see them at their most active. We were there by 10 and headed right to the back to the Polar Bear exhibit. As you can imagine, there were ton of kids there, but we beat them in and beat them to the Bears. And the Bears did not disappoint. The exhibit is similar to the shark exhibit at Sea World where you walk through a tunnel in the water and the sharks swim all around you. Same thing the polar bears and sea lions were swimming all around. It was fantastic and worth the price of admission! I think I got some good pictures. The sea lions were so cute, a young kid had his red hat and he put it up to the glass and the lion would follow it and then he moved it in a circle and the lion pirouetted!! He had the crowd in awe—at least me.
The dancing polar bear!!
We made our way around the zoo and stumbled on to the dinosaur display (not really we knew it was there). Got some cool selfies with the dinosaurs.
It was a good thing we got there early, when we were ready to leave, the rain showers started. So we headed out to lunch to Montana’s BBQ. Just a quick lunch special, because tonight was our big night out!! First date in months. We got VIP tickets to Folklorama. Folklorama is a two week festival to celebrate all the diverse cultures they have in Winnipeg. Each culture has a venue where they present a show, share local cuisine (food and drink), and have local art and other things for viewing or purchase. So our number one choice was sold out, so we chose number two. We would be visiting Hungary and Ukraine. We drove out to a Canad Inns Casino to join the group and catch our bus.
Of course they asked where everyone was from and we were the hit of the bus when we shouted Florida! At each of the venues they introduced the group and when they mentioned they had a couple from Florida, we were instant celebrities!
At Hungary we were treated to our main course of dinner which tasted a lot like chicken cacciatore with some noodle dumplings called nokedli (NO key). I liked it and ate it all up! Next up was the show which was very entertaining although every dance seemed to be the same with lots of slapping of hands to feet by the men and lots of spinning and twirling by the women and lots of yelling by both. The band that was accompanying them came in all the way from Transylvania and they were very good. It was weird as there was one man in the dance company, who had the lead in many of the dances, but he danced facing the band that was situated to the side of the stage and not facing the audience; I think he had a crush on one of the band members. It was a long show. After it was over, we headed over to the Ukrainian venue.
Here we were getting dessert, but Curt who was not full from the last meal went up and got a small sampler plate: sausage, cabbage roll and savory pierogis. This was yummy too. The desert was blueberry and strawberry cheesecake pierogis, the filling was good, but the crust a bit soggy, but that didn’t stop me, I ate most of them, till I got full (or satisfied as we say in weight watchers!).
The Hungarian Show was fantastic!! They had a very funny (wannabe comic, but really a math teacher on break) Master of Ceremonies, who explained each dance and what area it had originated in. This is something the last place could have used. The dances were all very original and they had the crowd involved with clapping and frequent applauds—the men dancers were like acrobats with some of their moves. To break up the dancing, they also had the 2004 runner up of Canadian Idol, Theresa Sokyrka, perform. She was very good, although she sang the songs in Hungarian, her voice and performance were outstanding. At each of the venues we met some local Winnipegians who told us stories about the snow and winters – one more reason not to live here (well that isn’t true, it is always the same reason—SNOW!! AND COLD!!) Everyone was still very proud of their city, but intrigued by our story. All in all a very nice date night!!
Day 4 – Wednesday
The forecast today is 100% rain and temperatures in the 60’s. What should we do—Laundry of course. Finding the right laundromat is a chore each time and one that falls into Curt’s wheelhouse. He spends hours looking at different laundromats and reading reviews, because you have to be careful what area you go to. This one advertised drop off service. We took the laundry in and they were going to charge $1.15 per pound (I thought it was weird that it was not in kilograms). Last time we spent 2.5 hours and $35 (Canadian), so we were considering this drop off service. We did this one time when we were on vacation in San Francisco with the kids and it was so worth it and the stuff was so neatly folded, you hated to disturb it. But since they couldn’t have it ready until the next day and it was raining, we did our own laundry. It wasn’t as pricy this time as we got a dryer that actually worked and we were done in under 2 hours! The place advertised internet, but wasn’t strong enough for me to load my blog—this is becoming an issue. Our campground charges $3 per day/per device for internet. That is how I loaded the last two blogs. But we didn’t buy it the rest of the time, we truly are roughing it!!!
We headed to Walmart, yes again, to buy a new ice machine. Our ice machine bit the dust. It has been around since Guam days, so it served us very well, but we NEED an ice machine. Our freezer is not big enough to store ice and food, so we use our ice machine to keep us in Iced Tea! We also loaded up on Over the Counter meds for Curt’s shoulder. Bought muscle relaxer (didn’t realize you could get that OTC, but I guess you can in Canada), Icy Hot and Salanpas, needless to say it was an expensive Walmart visit. But, we did save 5 cents by bringing in our own bag—they charge 5 cents for plastic bags, we are on a budget!
Back at the camper and the host comes up to the door and asks us if we are staying another day, we say no we’ll be leaving tomorrow. She said, you were supposed to leave today! I turned to Curt who checked us in and he says, no we paid til the 9th. She said today is the 9th…OOOOOOPSY…#retiredlife. I told her I would be down to pay for our extra day and then asked if we could stay one more day since this rainy day and Curt’s sore shoulder has limited our exploring of the city. She said yes she has the space. We had a good laugh with that one!! We have no idea what day it is or what date it is. I haven’t worn my watch since we left, why bother right!
You meet some interesting people when you’re camping. And camping people are usually pretty friendly. Today a Class C came in 2 doors down and they were from Georgia and had Georgia Bulldogs on their license plate…I had to go over and say hello. They lived in Georgia (only people in the military have license plates from different places that the no longer call home, right!). They had 2 daughters one how lived in Atlanta and one who lived right outside of Winnipeg. The traveled up here with their grandchildren to visit her daughter. They had stopped at Hershey Park and Gettysburg and Bemidji (If you are a regular and keeping up with the Blog you all know what Bemidji is known for???? Remember it is where the Mississippi River starts. Did you remember??). They were headed to South Dakota next, so I downloaded all our SD recommendations and gave her a few books we picked up. Get ready K, D, A, R, and T Lockhead, you are going to get a whole bag of old books and brochures when we get to your house and there will be a test!!
Day 5 – Thursday
Curt’s shoulder icy-hot’d up and we are off to town again with me driving. Maybe that wasn’t fun. There is a reason Curt doesn’t let me drive his truck, he is a terrible front seat driver—yes worse than me!! And he is not a very good navigator relying solely on the GPS without consulting the map is just not good navigating etiquette and it makes for driving through downtown and construction. He tells me that the GPS should know when the road is closed for construction—but somehow it does not!
Anyway, we headed downtown to the windiest corner in the city the corner of Main and Portage, and yes it was windy and cool at 75 degrees, couldn’t imagine it at 20 degrees and snowing.
But what is cool is that you can walk around town both under and above the city. They have bridges between the buildings and through the buildings so you can basically get to all the main buildings without walking outside. I’m sure they are more crowded in January than they were today. Curt was done with the walking and we decided to head back to the Casino that we visited the other night. They had a cute pub in the casino (which was all NON-smoking by the way) and just had a snack and a drink. We signed up to get a card since the waitress told us we could get a discount if we had a card. We weren’t planning to gamble (well at least I was not, because I ALWAYS lose), but with the 15% discount on meals also came a $10 gift for gambling. So off to find an interesting machine we went. I sat down at Betty White. I have no idea how to play but since I was playing with the casino $$ plus another $20 I put in to get it started, I hit max play. On the first play, nothing; on the second play, I WON $20 and I was ready to walk away, but then I said, well just one more play; Betty White came up everywhere (there were at least 20 of her smiling at me) I WON $98 on the third play—now I was done! Curt lost his $10 + $20 (which are unusual), so we walked out on the positive side. But it all only took about 5 minutes, I thought we could play a little longer on the penny machines. I don’t do casinos very often, but as I searched for the right machine, I was looking for something where the maximum bet wasn’t very much–why do they call it a penny machine when the minimum bet is 50 cents? Betty was only $3 maximum bet, so that is why I picked her.
Back to the campground and a relaxing evening with more icy hot. The next day we were leaving and I would be driving on one of our longest legs yet—4.5 hours. It felt like we were in Winnipeg forever. I needed to get to bed early we would be headed to the next province—Ontario here we come!!