Travelling east across Canada

All the provinces have their own special beauty.  The prairie provinces are so vast.  You can travel on the secondary roads for hours before someone catches up to you and passes.  It is startling when they do.  In three hours on #13 we only met 6 pickups coming towards us and you can see their dust for miles before you meet them.  We silly old folk (some say farts) laugh and yell "Congestion" when we see other vehicles.

 Saskatchewan is very flat and we took a poor choice of a route as much of it is loose gravel.  After a day of that kind of travel we settled in and to my dismay I found I had to get out the dust-buster (hand-held vacuum) to vacuum my cosmetics drawer, the utensils drawer and even had to vacuum Old Man's underwear and socks.  Then to my dismay the layers of sandy dust in the bins below were even worse.  I had to wash the BBQ three times before we could cook on it.  I cleaned all the drawers and cupboards inside the unit but decided to leave cleaning the storage bins along the sides under the unit outside, until we got to Ontario.  #1 son will have a shop vac.  Some drawers and bins were still pristine.  I do not know where the dust comes in.   It is a good thing the scenery was enchanting.  :)Even when we got back on paved roads I did not like passing the slow-moving combines.  It was spitting rain at this spot also.

We stopped for lunch and Old Man's nap at a small village called Oxbow.  These small villages/towns that are about an hour apart all seem to have their own water towers with their town name largely painted on them,                                                                          curling/skating rinks,
and cenotaphs to the local heroes,(this one was in Ogema),
playgrounds and swimming pools,

and retirement housing. 

While Old Man napped I went for my walk-about and also noticed that again these folk work hard to make their towns look good for summer visitors.  Oxbow has a programme where the purple hanging baskets are each in memory of a local person whose name is on the plaque above them.  Oxbow was full of purple flower beds and hanging baskets.



The most interesting find was a tent revival meeting being held on the school grounds.  I heard the grating tone of the preacher long before I got to the school, and knew it sounded like some fundamentalist ranting.  Sure enough....the sign proclaimed what they were about and other times for meetings. 
I thought tent revivals had gone the way of the dodo birds.  The tent was full too.  I am missing emoticons right now.  I need the round yellow head that looks stunned. Tomorrow I hope to cover Manitoba.