Month: August 2017

In Saulte Ste Marie, we stayed at the Glenview Cottages and RV park. We pulled into the park right behind 2 other RVs. We all got spots right next to each other, the first two happened to be traveling together we would learn later. Because it had been raining for several days now, the lady checking us in told us we could take up two spots so that we could straddle the puddles at the ends of the two spots. So there we all were 3 RVs taking up 6 spots, but you didn’t hear us complaining. Drizzle continued as we disconnected our truck and connected our water, electric and sewer. The camp host was another great tour guide once we asked SSM had for us to explore, she whipped out her map and went on to tell us the things to see and places to eat. We were craving some good seafood after driving along the lake and seeing sign after sign advertising Fish and Chips and fresh Walleye and other seafood choices. She sent us down to a local steak restaurant that as advertising Shrimp and Lobster fest. We would try this out for dinner. First we had business to tend to.

On the way to SSM, the truck told us it was time to get an oil change, so Curt wanted to get this taken care of soonest. We headed to Canadian Tire, which reminds me of a Tire Store crossed with a Walmart (that doesn’t sell food), carrying every household item as well as tons of Auto supplies. By now it was after 4 pm, in addition to getting the oil change, the passenger side window was not working right, not going up and down well, sounding like the motor was dying. Since it was so late, there was no getting all this done this late. So we made an appt for tomorrow morning and headed back to the Steakhouse for dinner. Curt ordered the Prime Rib and I got the Lobster and Shrimp. The cost of the lobster and shrimp was a bit high, but I was already tasting the lobster dipped in melted butter! But NO…I was very disappointed. First they brought out bread that you could tell was micro was waved as it cooled it got hot and chewy. I complained about this, the waitress apologized and returned later with some fresh bread, it was very good and made me mad we didn’t get the fresh the first time. The lobster was overcooked and chewy! The loaded baked potato had scimpy amounts of butter, cheese and bacon bits. For the price we paid, I expected a much better meal. When the waitress came by to ask us how our meal was, I told her that I was disappointed with the overcooked lobster. After that, she never came back, we had to get another waitress to fill our water. Well lesson learned, from now on we will be checking Yelp before accepting recommendations. When Curt went to put a review on Yelp, he learned that the restaurant only had a 2 star review. We would have never gone here had we checked this first.
Back to the camper and Curt was happy that we had 6 TV channels!

The next morning, we woke early and headed to Canadian Tire to get the Oil Change and have them fix the window. After we dropped off the car, we walked down the road to a restaurant to get breakfast. Not much choice on breakfast, this restaurant was attached to a hotel, but it was a nice place and the service was excellent. We got a good amount of food, coffee and tea, all for under $20. We took our time talking about our next stops of our trips. After about an hour or so, we headed back pick up the truck. Unfortunately, since it was Saturday and the Ford Service Center was closed, they were unable to fix the window issue, but the oil change was a success and they checked all the fluids, the truck got a clean bill of health!

So a few days ago, I came out in the morning to see that the paper towel roll was disturbed and pulled out. I looked at Daisy and asked her why she jumped up on the counter and what she was doing messing with the paper towels. She just looked at me and wagged her tail. But as I looked closer, I realized this was not Daisy…we had picked up a hitchhiker at one of our stops—a rodent!!! As I looked I around the camper looking for other signs, I looked in the oven and there was some of the papertowel and also some of the insulation. Oh NO…Curtis get up!!!!! I yelled for him to get up. He came out and agreed with my conclusion and so he headed down to get a mouse trap, but the only thing they had was a glue trap and the mouse was messing with the trap—we saw footprints, but they weren’t stong enough to capture it. So while we were here at Canadian Tire, we got some extra-duty mouse traps. More to come on this saga.

After picking up the truck, we stopped at a Farmers Market and got some fresh Romano beans (never had them before, but they came highly recommended), fresh cherry and roma tomatoes, and lime sugar cookies. .
After that we headed down town to go to the SSM Canal National Historic Site. The Canal contains a lock to join Lake Nicolet and the Saint Mary’s River to Lake Superior. The weather was finally sunny and the temperature was supposed to get to mid 70’s, a good day to get out and do some trailing and walking. There is a canal on the Michigan side as well and that is the one that gets most of the commercial traffic, so the Canadian canal gets mostly recreational traffic.

The boats enter the locks and then the conductor closes the gate. The water then falls 21 feet to allow the boat to get through. After the 20 million gallons of water exits the lock, the gates open and the boats proceed through. The boats need to give the Canadian side only about 20 minutes notice in order to get through. After watching a tour boat go through, we wandered down to the end of the pier and were able to get a panoramic picture of the Canadian side around to the USA side. We also walked a couple of trails. We were trying to walk to the other side of the island so we could see the American locks, but the trail was washed out due to too much rain. I was not adventurous and didn’t want to get our shoes wet so we headed back. We also saw a few sea planes take off, didn’t get any great pics or see any land, but they were around.

 

Below Curt is pointing at the US flag and the Canada flag!!

Of course as we were visiting the locks, we eyed a cute little wine bar and stopped in there for a glass of wine and a charcuterie plate, our favorite!! We sat at the bar and had some great conversation with Lindsey our barmaid and the manager of the place. Today was their one year anniversary, so we kept trying to get free wine from them, it almost worked, but not quite!!

 

We headed back to the camper and I sent Curt out to get us some wood so we could have a campfire. They were out at the campground, so he doubled back to the gas station and picked up some local wood.
The next day we had to get up early to go on a train ride. We took a train ride up to northern Ontario to the Agawa Canyon. It was a long train ride, 3.5 hours out and 4 hours back and about 90 minutes to explore the Canyon.

The train car and seats were comfortable and the windows were large so you could see all of the sites. They told us there were moose to be seen, but still we have seen NO MOOSE!!

 

Check out the fish in the water…the Lochness Monster!!

We got some nice pictures of the scenery and once we reached the canyon, we took all of the trails to see the 3 waterfalls that were scattered there. The one trail we passed on took you to a look out, but it was 300 steps up and there would not be enough time to see the waterfalls if you took the overlook trail so we passed on that one. It was a nice day to walk the trails,, so we were happy. The trip back, however, was a long one.

 

 

By the end I had had enough was starting to get some motion sickness. Finally we pulled into the station and we had to hurry back to rescue Daisy who had spent a long day in the camper and a quite dinner of left overs was in order. After dinner we enjoyed a campfire using the second half of the wood—you are not supposed to move wood, so we had to finish it up tonight, as there was rain in the forecast tomorrow.
The next day it was supposed to rain all day. What better way to spend a rainy day, than to do laundry. Of course, as I have said our internet was crazy. Because we were so close to the border, the phones kept picking up Verizon, but would only give us one bar. It was impossible to search the internet for additional laundry facilities when the first place we went to was closed, even though the hours posted said they should be open. We actually had to go and sit in the parking lot of a Tim Horton’s Doughnut shop so we could pick up there WiFi to search another facility. We were on the way to a place when I spied a coin laundry—one in the hand. We turned around and tried it out. It was a small place, but the lady who worked there was so helpful and pleasant, glad we turned around. The only part I didn’t like was when I was sitting at the table loading up a blog post (since the WiFi was tolerable), a man tapped me on the shoulder and told me to get up because these were the folding tables. So not wanting to cause a scene, I stood up and finished my post while standing up with the computer on one of the washing machines. The machines were good, as we were in and out in less than 2 hours. I think that is a record for us and not only that, we paid the bill with all of our left over coinery and didn’t have to get change of any bills. Clean laundry and when we returned, the rain stopped and I was able to sweep and mop the floors of the camper. They really needed it with all the mud and dirt we had been tracking in with the rain the past few days. During the housecleaning, I discovered that our house guest had made it into one of the kitchen drawers as evidenced by his droppings. Well of course this freaked me out and we ended up taking out all of the drawers to find out how he got in. Again sent Curt out to get some steel wool so that I could block that entrance and keep him out of my drawers. We hadn’t seen him in a day or so, but he was chowing down on the peanut butter Curt was putting in the trap…UGH!!!
After my cleaning frenzy, we had a nice dinner at home. Curt cooked up those romano beans we got a the farmer’s market using a ham hock we had in the freezer that we bought in South Dakota and I baked some chicken in the over since it wasn’t really hot—high today was 70 after the rain cleared out. We had a long drive in the morning, so we watched Ninja Warrior and went to bed early.
On the road again in the morning.

As we have made it to the Lake areas, the weather has changed; we are getting more rain, more humidity and cooler temperatures in the evening. Leaving Thunder Bay, the forecast was for rain all day the following day. It is really a pain to pack up your camper to move when it is raining. Everything gets wet, the inside of the camper, the dog, the car and YOU! So we tried to be proactive the night before and put everything away, emptied the tanks and hooked up the truck to the camper.

In the morning it was that misty rain, so not too bad, but not much to get us on the road.
We split the driving. Curt took first leg, I took the second and Curt finished up for the end. The drive was supposed to be a pretty one as it was along the water—Lake Superior, but the rain did roll in and there was not much to see. Also we hit lots of construction along this route.

They were blasting the rocks so at times it was dead stop and flag man and one lane throughways. The drive was supposed to be 5.5 hour drive, but with the construction, rain and our stop in White River it was closer to 7 hours.

So did you know that the Winnie the Pooh story starts in White River, Ontario? As the story goes, Captain Harry Colebourn, a Canadian Army Veterinarian, was on his way back home and had a stopover on the train in White River, Ontario. He got off the train and was walking around and folks would come to the train stop to sell their wares and he noticed that someone was selling a bear for $20. He bought the bear, got back on the train and took the bear home to his hometown. He named him “Winnie” after his hometown of Winnipeg; we missed visiting his home there while we were in that town. When the Captain returned to the war, Winnie traveled with him to the United Kingdom and he left him at the London Zoo for safe keeping while the troops went to France for active duty. After his service, Capt. Colebourn returned to London to pick up Winnie, but when he saw how happy Winnie and the children that visited to zoo were, he decided to leave him there. It was Winnie at the London Zoo that gave A.A.Milne the inspiration for Winnie the Pooh stories. When we arrived at White River, Ontario it was raining quite hard, but we battled the rain to visit the visitor’s center. The Visitor’s Center staff was all outside under a huge white tent readying for tomorrow’s start of the Winnie the Pooh festival that would start the next day—darn we just missed it.

An hour or so down the road and we arrived at Wawa. As we arrived, the rain was trailing off and we were able to set up quickly. Curt went to check in and found that the lady didn’t have our reservation (we called ahead and gave them the wrong dates), but no worries, she was nice enough to find us a site for overnight. We left early this morning (for us), on the road by 0930, so despite the long drive we still arrived at the site relatively early and received a site that was not flooded. The family that came in a few hours after us got the site right next to ours and it was flooded with several inches of puddles. We kept everything hooked up and attached our electric and water and settled in for another night of zero TV reception and terrible internet reception, despite the claims of free Wi-Fi. We truly are roughing it!! I can hear all of the tiny violins playing out there.
The drive from Wawa was another miserable drive. We started out with fog, more construction and rain. This also was supposed to be a pretty drive as well since it hugged the coastline of Upper Lake Superior. On the way we followed the signs that announced the upcoming Agawa Indian Crafts Center. For those who have driven the I95 corridor through the Carolinas, it would remind you of the signs announcing the South of the Border tourist trap. This was a very similar attraction. They sold gas, which we needed!! So we decided to park and check it out.

The store had craft times and art that were made by local artists. Unfortunately, there was no art that would go with “beach theme”, so we got out of there relatively cheaply, just picking up an Ontario Christmas Ornament.

With only another hour down the road, we arrived at our next stop—Saulte Ste Marie (pronounced Soo Saint Marie)—I probably should have known that as I have taken several years of French in high school and college.

I made it, I drove from Ignace to Thunder Bay and it was a nice drive. As we drove toward Thunder Bay, our campground was about 15 km outside of Thunder Bay. We stayed at Happyland RV campground. It was a nice campground and we had a great spot with lots of trees and secluded. It was probably the first campground that we didn’t get direct sunlight. If we put out the awning, we had shade from morning til night. As we pulled into the site, we noticed that the next door neighbors had a North Carolina license plate and they also had a FSU license plate. Needless to say, they eyed the Gator on the back of Curt’s truck right away. We struck up a good conversation right away. But it would have to wait until we came back from getting some food.
We headed back to Kakabeka Fall (the city where the campground is located) for lunch. We were famished and I knew what I wanted to order at the little pizzeria we found–French Fries!! This was the 2nd time I have gotten the French Fries in Canada and these were the best ever!!!  The waitress brought us vinegar to put on our fries???  But Curt being the adventurous type, tried the vinegar on his fries.  Not bad he says, so I had to try it.  It was not bad, but I’ll stick with the plain old fries.  They remind me of the boardwalk fries. I ordered a personal pizza too, but wanted to make sure that I finished the fries so I brought the pizza home for later. Curt got a panzerotti, a calzone type thing that was made with fried bread instead of pizza dough and loaded with cheese, meat and sauce. They don’t have good iced tea here in Canada, they use Nestea instant tea or Brisk canned tea.
Headed back to take Daisy for a walk and settle in for the night. Unfortunately, no WiFi and no TV channels. Curt has been a good sport, he really is a TV junkie and it has absolutely been difficult with no TV. I think if we ever do this full time, we will have to invest in a satellite TV that gives us TV as well as internet. We splurged and bought the unlimited data before we left Washington, but since we have been in Canada, we don’t have “unlimited”—once you use 1.5 gigs, it slows incredibly. Not only can I not keep up with friends and family on Facebook, I cannot post my blog. I know that disappoints everyone.
So anyway back to Thunder Bay, on Monday, we were up and ready to explore downtown. It wasn’t the best of weather, a little cool and overcast, but we made the best of it. We started out exploring Prince Arthur Landing, Marina. Below are some pics from the excursion:

We headed off to lunch at Wacky Wings, that is a franchise here and the place has good wings and food, Curt had the wings and I had a Chicken Caesar Wrap, but the fries were not the “real” French fries we have come to enjoy. Wacky Wings is a cross between Buffalo Wild Wings and Dave & Busters. We passed on the games part and headed home to the camper.
We have been having some Camper difficulties. As you know if you have been following us, we had to take it into the shop back in Minot to get a piece installed to fix our kitchen slide. Or at least that is what we thought. It didn’t fix our slide or any of the other issues we have been having. But one of the biggest issues we have been concerned about is our trailer brakes. Back when we were at Ellsworth in South Dakota, another Grand Design owner came to say hello and took a look at our tire rims and told me that we had a brake seal leak issue. He introduced me to the Grand Design Facebook page where I heard others sharing their concerns about brake issues. We have not had any braking issues, but wanted to make sure there was nothing to worry about. After the Minot shop refused to check the brakes, I decided to email Grand Design Customer Service line and ask if there were any concerns. After a few days we received a call back and they told us to take our trailer into the shop to get them checked as soon as we could. This was concerning to us, so on Monday while in Thunder Bay we called an RV Service Person (I looked up on the internet and found the place with the best reviews). We called Al Repair shop on Monday afternoon and told him our concerns and he said can you bring it in TOMORROW?? Yes he said TOMORROW? Not 3 weeks from now. Not only that, he knew we were living in the trailer, he said, and “what is the best time for YOU”??? Best time for US??? Who was this Al…our hero!! We took our trailer in the next day and had it to his shop by 1000. He asked us to wait until he took the brakes apart and he could give us a quote. It was about 45 minutes later when he came to get us and show us the issues. The brake seals were in fact leaking and that was the reason for the black grit on our tire rims. We authorized the repairs and he told us to call back about 1400 and he would give us an update. Wow!! I finally had piece of mind knowing our brakes were up to snuff. All thanks to Al!!!
While we were waiting for Al to make the repairs on Tuesday, we had Daisy with us and decided to go and explore the Sleeping Giant Provincial Park.

 

 

On the way to Sleeping Giant that was about 45 minutes East of Thunder Bay, we passed a monument for Terry Fox. Terry Fox is a young man, who while a teenager was diagnosed and lost his leg to cancer. He was considered “cured”. And in honor of the many children and other people that he met in his cancer journey, he decided he wanted to run his “Marathon of Hope”, across Canada run to raise money for cancer research. He started his journey in St John’s, Newfoundland on April 12, 1980; he ran the equivalent of a marathon a day (26 miles a day) across 5 provinces when at mile 3,339, and his cancer recurred and forced him to give up his run. He inspired an outpouring of immense national pride and raised $24M for cancer research. He passed on June 28, 1991. This monument is dedicated to his memory on behalf of the Ontario citizens.

We had purchased a National Park Pass for Canada, but the only time we have been able to use it has been in Alberta. Most of the Parks we have been seeing are Provincial Parks (like State Parks) and they do not take the pass. The Sleeping Giant Provincial Park charged $15 to spend the day and wanted to charge us $11 for a map.

But we decided to bypass the purchase of the pass and just drive through staying a few miles ahead of the vehicle pass monitor lady. We were just looking for a picnic area with a view as we packed a picnic lunch, but didn’t want to pay the money, so we just drove down to the end and back. Down at the south end there was a campground and General Store.  Oh and we also passed Rita Lake–of Aunt Rita fame.

View from the South end of the Park.

We stopped at the Terry Fox Monument on the way back and ate our lunch for free!!

We arrived back at Al’s repair to pick up our trailer and were on our way with piece of mind and recharged brakes. We were supposed to leave the next day, but we decided to stay another day since we had not even looked at where we would be staying the next day and it was supposed to be nice weather on Wednesday. Thankfully they gave us permission to stay in our spot for an extra day…Yeah!!

On Wednesday we took Daisy out for the day again and headed down to Kakabeka Falls. There were a few trails here and we got our exercise in. See the pictures below. Daisy was enjoying herself trying to chase the squirrels and pull my arm out of the socket in the meantime. Usually she doesn’t pull too hard, but not today. But she deserves some leeway once in a while, she has been such a good girl this trip.

So we headed back to the camper to plan our next few stops. This is where we ran into difficulty. We knew our next big stop was going to be Sault Ste Marie (pronounced Soo Saint Marie, as we know now), but it was a good 8 hour drive and usually we would like to make that into a 2 stop trip, but unfortunately, our first choice for stopping was booked up so we went to the next place a few miles further up the road—Wawa!!

Shortly after we left Winnipeg, with me driving–yes we decided to let Curt’s shoulder relax a few more days.  We came upon a marker on the side of the road–Center of Canada, in Landmark Canada, just southeast of Winnipeg. Curt was a little slow with the camera (he’s not used to sitting in the passenger seat), so we didn’t get a picture. This one is off of the internet. Landmark is actually the longitudinal center of Canada, or at least that is their claim to fame. If Curt were driving we may have made a U-turn and gone back to get a picture of the sign, but I was having no part of u-turning or even going around the block, which was really not a block but a farm or two. So you get what we got!

This was one of our longer drives in a while, 4.5 hours. We had reservations for Sunday at Thunder Bay and were planning a two stop before getting there, but had trouble with reservations so this leg was further with a two day stay. It was a little town named Ignace. When I say little town, I mean no stop sign and one restaurant, but the campground was pretty nice: Davy Lake Campground located right on Davy Lake. We had a nice tree by the site and an obstructed view of the lake. Again there was a nice trail for walking Daisy. We unhooked the camper and relaxed with a glass of wine. It was supposed to get down to 50 degrees tonight, so we agreed that it would be a good night for a campfire…unfortunately the camp store was all out of s’more kits…frowny face!

One of the things we like about camping is the friendly people you meet along the way. While we were enjoying our glass of wine, a lady came by walking her dog and of course her dog and Daisy had to say hello. We got to talking and she told us about a few good places to eat and visit in Montreal. I took some good notes so as to not forget.
Our next door neighbor came in rather late on Friday night in a travel trailer and walked over to say hello. He was from New Brunswick and was on his way to Manitoba to visit his son who at the age of 22 was a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and stationed over there. He had not seen him in over 6 months. He was very proud of his son and you could tell that he was looking forward to seeing him. He had a very strong accent and did not speak good English; I think French was his native tongue. He left early in the morning before I even got up to take Daisy for our morning walk.
The next day we decided we would go out for breakfast, since we ate all the eggs, so we ventured out to find the only “restaurant” which was in a hotel. It had a good breakfast and we did some exploring on the menu and had some “pea meal”. The waitress said it was a cross between bacon and ham with some corn meal around it. And she was right, that is exactly what it tasted like–Not bad at all.

There really wasn’t anything to do in this town so back to the campground for some more relaxation and catching up on the blog. Unfortunately, our cell service was terrible at the campground and they did not offer internet. We were truly off the grid. The hardest part about keeping up with the blog is the posting. The writing is one thing then you have to get the pictures from the 4 cameras and organize them into the right stop and then pick the best pictures to align with the story. But don’t get me wrong, I am glad to keep this account as we go all, of these places are running together, this will help us remember the trip.
The camp host was very friendly here and told us about a place we could pick wild blueberries. So later that afternoon we ventured out to go find us some blueberries!! This feat was a bit more difficult that we were led to believe. She directed us to a dirt road and said to follow it in. We did that and found ourselves looking up at a steep hill that I was afraid to drive the truck up. So we parked at the bottom and hoofed it up the hill all the while keeping a lookout for the blueberries. We actually had to google what a blueberry plant looked like, wondering if wild blueberries looked any different than the ones you buy at the grocery store. At the top of the hill we come upon this sign. It seems that Ignace is the beginning of a 48 km canoe trail that ends up at a “castle”.

But it is not a straight shot as you have to have several portages (that’s where you have to carry your canoe on land to get to the next lake or river)—so much for that canoe trip. We had found one blueberry plant on this trek that had 3 blueberries on it, big disappointment. So back to the truck we went and on the way out, Curt was driving now because I was freaking about the dirt road, I told Curt to go slow so I could look out and see if I could see any. Well, I’ll be darned about 100 feet in from the initial turn onto the dirt road, I saw a bush and then another.

There were quite a few blueberries, but most were still not ripe. See below the picture of the blueberries. No worries, I was going to mix them into my pancake mix tomorrow and enhance my blueberry pancake mix.

After the blueberry adventure, we headed back to the camper and ordered up another delivery of wood (you have to use local wood, due to some diseases they fear to be transported in the wood). We had dinner in and Curt started the fire while I walked Daisy—his shoulder still giving him some trouble. I guess I would be driving once again tomorrow, but only a 3 hour drive time this time—on to Thunder Bay!!

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!!

 

Hello family and friends, sorry for the delay in posting, but the internet is making posting blog episodes very difficult.  The campgrounds have limited wifi or it cost extra.  Please let us know you are enjoying the blog by posting comments or dropping us a line on FB.  Thanks!!

The trip from Brandon to Winnipeg was farmlands with a few small towns sprinkled through, but no crazy attractions worth stopping for. The directions took us around the city, which was good and we made it to the campground by about 2 pm. Time to relax and settle in for a home cooked meal. I took out a steak this morning and we would be grilling for the first time in a while.
Those of you that know us, know that Curt is the cook/chef of the family. Not that I can’t cook, but he enjoys it more, he was home more often to prepare the meals and he also thinks my cooking is bland. No worries, I enjoyed his Pinterest recipes! Well now with him doing all the driving (he hasn’t let me drive even though I ask every day, he says, he’d be bored sitting there with nothing to do), and not liking the limited space in the camper for cooking extravagant meals, the roles are reversed. I am now the cook/chef. I’d call me more the food preparer. I am not one to look up recipes on line or spend a lot of prep time—I grew up in an Irish family where every meal consisted of meat, potatoes (my parents would buy them by the 50 pound bag, no lie), vegetable and bread with a spaghetti dinner thrown in there once a week or so, usually on Tuesdays! So in other words, my meals are simple but filling and tasty. So whenever I am cooking the meal Curt will provide guidance from the recliner: Did you salt the water? Are you going to put some pepper in that? You are going to boil them? Are you sure you want to do that? Did you set the timer? And on and on and on….It’s all good, because most of the time I haven’t done or didn’t think to do the things he suggests. Anyway, the steak dinner (courtesy of the Fritz’s—we helped clean out their fridge before they packed out in Spokane) was perfectly cooked pink in the middle with just the right seasoning (even though I didn’t marinate it 30 minutes like he suggested–I was too hungry) baked potatoes and frozen veggies…but I forgot to make the mushrooms—you have to have mushrooms with steak—another Meg Fail!!
Knowing we had a lot of options tomorrow, we decided to stay in for the night and get our rest. Our campground host at Arrowhead RV Park gave us as much information as if we went to the Visitor’s Center. She spent a good 15-20 minutes telling us all the things to do in town. Curt and I looked at each other—maybe we need another day!! She loaded us down with maps with routes highlighted and coupons for CityPass’s. We had some work to do tonight to figure out where to start our Winnipeg adventure.

Right out back of the campground is a beautiful green space for long walks with Daisy. Check out these pics.

As everyone knows, Canada is cold and snowy in the winter, so when the summer rolls around, they try to fit as much as they can into their summers. There are so many festivals and events planned and Winnipeg did not disappoint. We already knew the Summer Games were going on; this is like Summer Olympics for Canada. We looked it up on line, however the only place we could find tickets for the days we were in Winnipeg was for soccer and Curt was not in for sitting in the sun watching soccer—he’s not a fan. Beach volleyball, basketball and diving were all sold out—darn! But that didn’t stop us, there was a Summer Games festival going on downtown so off to The Forks we go.
We were headed down to The Forks for the Summer Games festival, unfortunately the festival did not start until 530 pm and it was only 1 pm. But there was still a lot going on down there. The Forks is an outdoor mall area that has history, food court (reminded me of 30th Street Station in Philadelphia, only this building used to be an old horses barn, according to Capt. Dan). There is also a Marina here, where the Assiniboine River and the Red River meet.

We walked around and found a boat tour called Splash Dash River Boat tour. It cost $11 (which is $8.67) per person. That is what we keep saying, oh it’s cheap because it’s Canadian money, like its Monopoly money or something…NOT!! The exchange rate has been helpful for our budget, but the taxes are a killer…Provincial sales tax is 8% and the Goods and Services tax is 5% that equals 13% total…UGH!! So I digress, back to the Splash Dash River Boat tour. Our Captain was Captain Dan, of Forrest Gump fame (oops, not really, that was Lt Dan). Anyway he was a fantastic tour guide. The boat was a small pontoon boat and the tour had only 10 people on it, plenty of elbow room and Curt and I had our own seat – highly recommend it!! Capt. Dan loved history and told us so much about the city of Winnipeg and its rich history—reminiscent of the San Antonio River Cruise with less people and faster speeds. He was very proud of his city.

Our first stop on the cruise was the flood wall. Because Winnipeg is at the meeting of the two rivers: the Assiniboine and the Red and their proximity of the mountains and the amount of snow and freeze they get, they are prepared for flood every year. On the wall he showed us the blue line was a normal thaw and what happened most years, the yellow line is the one that happens every 10 years or so and requires some planning such as sandbagging, but the town can survive. But the red line shows that “once in a century flood”.

Winnipeg was hit by the Great Winnipeg Flood of 1950; a natural disaster was declared when the river remained over flood stage for 51 days. Many lost their homes and livelihoods—see red line on the wall. So after this flood, one of Winnipeg’s leaders, Dufflin Roblin, worked with local and federal officials and was able to secure both provincial and federal the funding to develop a flood control system including digging a 26 mile long ditch circling the city, building a 25 mile long dike across the river to act as a retaining lake, adding gates and control systems and raising most roads to above the flood levels. Many thought he was crazy and this project due to the cost and effort that it would take to complete was nicknamed Duff’s Ditch or Duffs’ Folly. However, the system was fully tested in 1997, dubbed when the “flood of the century” where the water flows was forecasted to be 50% greater than the 1950 flood. This Flood of the Century is the one that devastated and destroyed Grand Forks downtown with flood and fire and it was headed right for Winnipeg (the Red River runs North) and would be the first true test of the flood control system. According to Capt. Dan the city was an island for about 3 days as they waited for the flood waters to recede. So the city survived, but I am sure some of the farm lands were wiped out, but the infrastructure and most of the population endured.

Our next stop was the legislature building, this is a very pretty building. By the way, today was August 7, a civic holiday and in Manitoba, it was Louis Riel Day. According to Capt. Dan, Riel was a lawyer and political leader of the Metis (one of three recognized aboriginal people) and he was responsible for negotiating the Manitoba Act with the Canadian government which established Manitoba as a province and protected rights of its people. Despite being a hero to the Metis people, others across Canada considered him a villain for his role in several rebellions. He was sentenced to death and hanged, but he is still known as the “Founder of Manitoba”.
The legislature building has a Golden stature of Hermes atop of it, see picture
Capt. Dan took us further down up the river and brought us to a stop in front of a big house and went on to tell us about a man who made his fortune back in the beginning of the 1900’s and decided to take his family on a family vacation to Europe and Egypt for a month and they booked a return trip to the US on the Titanic. He never made it off the boat—his family (wife and children) did survive. The last they saw him he was standing on the deck of the boat with his favorite Winnipeg Buffalo Coat and in one hand he held a large cigar and in the other a glass of whiskey and he was telling his family how much he loved them. Sad story, the rich man’s name was Mark Fortune…no lie, google him.

Next stop on our tour was to position us to take a picture of the famous Winnipeg tourist attractions. It is the view you see on many of the postcards: the Esplanade Riel (named after Louis) which is a pedestrian bridge that has a restaurant in the middle and the Canadian Museum for Human Rights.

Next photo op was the St Boniface Cathedral Façade, which is located in Winnipeg’s French Quarter. The Cathedral was built in 1894, but was destroyed by fire in 1968. Most of the Cathedral was made of wood and burned completely to the ground in ashes, but the stone façade survived the fire. According to Capt. Dan the round stained glass window exploded and stained glass was found clear across the river. The new cathedral was build next to the façade. Check out these pictures. After the boat ride we walked over to the French Quarter and stopped in the cathedral and said a prayer thanking God for the blessings he has given us and also for the opportunity to enjoy this fantastic trip of a lifetime!

The Capt. Dan’s tour was enjoyable, entertaining and educational. It was also a great escape from the heat of 85 degrees. After the tour we decided to walk over the Esplanade Riel and stop in for a drink at Mon Ami Louis restaurant for a Sangria and a great view of the river. Had some munchies and waved to the boats as they rode underneath us.
We walked over to the Cathedral like I said above and during that walk we received a FaceTime call from my family who was visiting with Mom and Dad in Philadelphia. It was great to talk to everyone especially my nieces and nephews. I think about them when I’m writing this hoping to not only show them pictures of the places we traveled, but to also to give them some fun facts about these places so they can win big on Jeopardy.
Our parking was about to expire so we headed back over the Esplanade and through the Forks. We were leaving just as the festivities were about to begin, but we had to go home and rescue Daisy. Our dinner consisted of a romantic dinner of left overs and sandwiches at Meg’s Diner!

On the road again and finally headed to Canada. Because we got out of Minot so late, we only got about an hour down the road before we found a nice campground at a city park with full hookups in Bottineau, ND —home to Tommy Turtle. It was a pretty campsite with lots of grass for Daisy to lie out in the sun. A quick dinner at home and a relaxing evening.
The next day we planned a busy one with several stops with our camper on our way to our next stop in Canada.

About an hour down the road, we entered the International Peace Garden located at the 49th parallel north of Bottineau. It was built and designated as a symbol of friendship with water fountains, formal gardens, statues and a 911 memorial. You can roam back and forth across the international border freely. It was dog friendly, so we were able to take Daisy on our walk around the grounds.

 

Promise of Peace Sculpture

After leaving the Peace Gardens, we headed across the Canadian border. The Border Agent was very friendly and asked how are trip was going. A far cry from the treatment we received entering the US last time. We even claimed our wine and he told us that we should pay a duty but he was going to let us through since we declared. We then told him about being in transit on military orders and he said great, no duty needed! We were through in 5 minutes.
The next stop was a small town called Boissevain, Manitoba located in the heart of the Turtle Mountains, hence all the turtles we’ve been seeing.

Boissevain’s claim to fame is the town’s “Outdoor Art Gallery”. As we drove into town we were greeted by another Tommy the Turtle. Tommy is 28 feet tall and weighs 4.5 tons; he is the town’s mascot. The town used to be the home of the historic Canadian Turtle Derby that started in 1972, but the community “ended” it in 2001—I’m pretty sure there is more to that story, but I did not pursue the “why”. If you find out, please drop us a line.

After a quick visit to the Visitor’s Center, who handed me a Tommy Turtle pin and several Canadian Flag pins, we all (Daisy included) set off with our map to find the Outdoor murals around the town. Here is a picture of the Heritage Tree; the story is this tree was planted from a walking stick used by an 1800’s business man, William Venables.

Below are some of the more interesting and better preserved murals that we located:

Next stop Brandon, our stop for the night at Turtle Crossing Campground. After setting up the camper, we ventured to downtown Brandon and had dinner at a nice little pub called The Dock on Princess (Princess was the name of the street). We don’t usually eat out very much, but I think we were still celebrating Blue ID Card Day! After dinner we stopped in at the Visitor’s Center and got the low down on the city from a young college girl who worked there. She was really excited to tell us about her small town. After telling her we only had a few hours, where does she suggest we go, she sent us to “Crow’s General Store”…we were off!

She did not disappoint, Crow’s General Store was a mix of Ice Cream Store and antique shop. Fun times, check out the pics where the owner took our pics, posed us in all these different ways and even supplied the hats. He was so excited we came by to visit, even though we didn’t stay for ice cream—I was still full from dinner.
Another busy day in the books!

 

I’m a little late writing this post so can only hit the high points. I have found that writing the blog when we are only staying a night or two in a place is hard—not enough time in the day. We stay pretty busy wanting to explore each town or city we stop in.

After leaving Minnesota and the beautiful lake, we headed back West (that wasn’t in the plans) and stayed a few nights in Grand Forks. Grand Forks AFB campground was a bit challenging for camping; the hookups for the site were way in the back of the site so we had tried two different sites before finally settling in. Grand Forks was a short 2 night stay on our way back to Minot. So day one was most relaxing at the campsite and of course visiting the commissary.
On Sunday, it was a beautiful day to explore the area and visit some wineries…who didn’t figure that was coming!! We drove south on some back roads through corn fields and wheat fields and who knows what fields—it would be nice if they labeled their crops for us “driver-byers”. There was a code on one of the crops and when I looked it up, I found out it was genetically modified. And not a protester in sight!!
Well we finally arrived at the address of the 4e Winery and it was like driving up to someone’s house for Sunday brunch. But it truly was a hidden gem. Lisa was our hostess and she was divine. She treated everyone there like they were the only guests to her home for a sip of wine. She was very knowledgeable about the wines and told us how she came to ND (her husband teaches chemistry at University of ND) and how their hobby became their job. Her husband worked both at the university, and did the wine making in his off time. She worked full time in the winery. It was a casual, relaxed place where you could just sit and sip. No rush. We hate having to stand at the bar while the person pours wine after wine. We purchased a few bottles of her white wine for later and as we were walking out the door, she gave us some home grown zucchini and yellow squash to take with us. Free food—we were all over that!! Cooked it up that night for dinner and it was delish!!

We also wanted to make sure to drive back through Fargo, not far from the winery. You have to say Fargo, ND—been there!! Curt watches Fargo on TV, and he said that the town was much bigger than it looks on the show. I’ve never seen the show, so I have no comment here, it was a little big town with all the essentials, and we just drove on through. The return trip we decided to take I29 back toward Grand Forks, we had enough of the back roads, and even the highway was a boring ride.
After this we headed back to the campground for a quiet dinner, where I already mentioned we ate some of the fresh zucchini and squash with our meal.
The next day we were on the road again and headed to Minot and on the way to Minot, we passed right through the “Geographic Center of North America” in Rugby, ND. Photo-Op!

The town erected a monument in 1931 saying they were the “the spot”. But, a bar owner in a town about 100 miles away recalculated and found his bar to be the center and has since copyrighted the term (the Town of Rugby’s copyright had expired when no one renewed it). Now the two are at odds and in the meantime another fellow has come along and said a completely different place called Center, ND (I kid you not) is the geographic center of North America…drama is everywhere. If you are interested you can read more about it at:  https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/25/science/north-america-geographical-center-north-dakota.html

Since the base was 17 miles outside of downtown Minot, we camped at a campground right in the city at Roughrider campground, nice staff, but not much grass for Daisy to lay in, mostly dirt and rock, but only 5 minutes to the shop.  We were there on business, so wanted to make it convenient to get from the campground to the RV shop (we had to drop off the camper on Thursday at 0800—today was Tuesday August 1).

1 August was an important milestone—Day 1 of Retirement. It was a day of celebration, right?!?! To celebrate this grand day, we headed out to Roadhouse Steak House for some Flo’s Filets. Dinner was divine.

Wednesday was supposed to be a very rainy day—100% chance of rain. It would be the first rainy day we have seen in weeks. Our weather has been very pretty, sometimes hot, but mostly sunny with an occasional afternoon sprinkle, but nothing to complain about. The next morning after breakfast, we headed up to Minot AFB in the pouring down rain. We were headed to the base for a specific reason…it was Blue ID card day!!
So for the military folks out there, this is an emotional day. Being an AD Colonel has some privileges written and unwritten and I thought by giving up my CAC card and becoming “just another DAMN retired Colonel” as my friend Bill Moore would say, things would be changing. I guess we will find out. I entered the Customer Service area just ahead of 5 young active duty Airman. Curt quickly directed me to the sign in computer and I was able to get signed in before them…but…I signed in as “retired” needing ID card. Surely the AD in uniform would be called first?? We waited about 15 minutes and we were called back before the 2nd AD was called back. The gentleman who took care of us, was very nice and pleasant but in no big hurry. We were with him about 25 minutes. Granted he had to update the system with my retirement orders and make 2 ID cards. He and Curt talked about golfing—Minot has a golf course! But of course with the rain and tomorrow being booked, we would not be able to get out on the course. Getting the new ID card was emotional for me. My picture was taken, I approved, but when it printed out it looks like I’ve been baking on a beach for the past 2 months. But I guess I’ll fit right in when I get to Florida.
We next headed to the commissary to fill up our small little freezer with some commissary meats. One thing we found out from our last trip over the border, was food was very expensive and they have huge taxes on everything. So we stocked up on steak, chicken, and pork chops, as well as canned goods (we go through tomatoes and mushrooms pretty fast). Back home, I decided it was a good idea to rearrange the food storage. One thing with downsizing to a 29 foot camper, I gave up my pantry. Although there is plenty of inside storage, it is scattered and hard to organize (lots of little cabinets). But I did the best I could and we were ready to go celebrate the “Blue ID Card” day.

Where are we going you ask?? First guess wins the prize…wine bar. Yes, would you believe the little town of Minot has a pretty cool wine bar? I guess you have to have somewhere to go during those long cold winters. But with the bartender’s suggestion, we purchased a nice red blend wine and a charcuterie plate and bruschetta and talked about where we were going next. WE do a lot of that, what should we see next? We have been making our reservations just a few days to the same day and have been very lucky. It lets us be more flexible to go off the beaten trail to see something of interest. We are out to see all the road side attractions and tourist traps we can.

The next day we had to have the camper to the shop by 0800. We made this appointment at least 3 weeks ago for them to fix our slide out. Our original dealer found an issue during our yearly checkup, but had to order the part. By the time the part came in, they were unable to get us in before we were leaving. They gave us the part and told us to go to any dealer. When we checked in, we asked them to fix a few small things and the list started to get a little long—nothing too crazy but when you are living in it full time can become annoying. One item is our black tank (the one that holds the toilet waste) leaks when you drive. We purchased a temporary valve that we were using and it was working well, but we wanted it fixed. We asked him to fix our screen door which was misaligned and didn’t close properly and left a gap for bugs to come in. Then we asked him to fix a broken latch, then he said, wait a minute, you made this appointment for one thing, if you want this other stuff done you will have to make another appointment—WOW!! Where have you heard that before? Reminded me of healthcare…
Sorry says the doctor, “Only one problem per appointment”. What great customer service! So as a pediatric nurse practitioner, I have had to listen to patients/parents bring their laundry list of issues in, but I on the other hand would listen attentively and then assist them in prioritizing the biggest issues. It’s all in how you talk to your customer!! I felt belittled and irritated by his response and treatment. I had to walk out and let Curt handle the rest of the conversation.
Since it had rained yesterday, the temperatures were cooler it was 62 at 0830, so we treated ourselves to breakfast while Daisy stayed in the car. It was going to be a long day to find things to do that were dog friendly, but we didn’t do too badly.
After breakfast we headed over to a Farmers Market at Oak Park, but knowing we were headed over the border the next day, we didn’t want to buy any produce, so instead we just walked around the park to let Daisy get exercised. Next we headed to the Scandinavian Cultural Center. Below are some pictures of our visit there:

Then we went to Walmart (yes again) and by then they finally called us at 2 pm to tell us that they put the piece in the slide, but if we wanted them to fix the black tank issue (that should have been a warranty issue) they would have to keep the camper for another day. This would mean we would have to get a hotel room with Daisy. Since we had a temporary fix, we decided to tell them never mind and we would be by to pick up. Upon picking it up and going over the issues we stated did you fix the latch on the door on the slide? “You never told us anything about that.” We looked at one another and said I know we had a 5 minute conversation about it this morning with this guy, forget it we’re done with these people, we’ll fix it ourselves. So we hooked up the camper, secured puppy and we were off to the next adventure.