Doreen Doesn't Like Manitoba

Well yesterday was a little bit of a bust, which is a pity because the weather was so nice and warm; I had my short sleeves and shorts on. This is doubly dissapointing, because today is really cold, damp and windy. Today makes Victoria winter days seem like the tropics. Miss Travelaire didn't like the wind gusts, and wanted to go wander off again. And then theres the roads. Every 15 or 20 feet there's a crack and the wheels go bump. I guess it's the cold winters that cause these bumpy roads in Northern Ontario and again here in Manitoba. I remember now, a few years ago when we went east through the northern American plains on Interstate 90, that the road was the same. We had our truck camper then, and with the weight of the camper on the back of the truck, the whole front end of the vehicle would start to oscillate up and down, up and down.

 

And the scenery here leaves a little to be desired. The farms are so big that you don't see any farm houses or barns or anything like that. The road has bypasses around all the towns so you don't see anything there either. And there don't seem to be any mountains around here. No, that's not right. You don't see any hills around here. So, I think from Doreen's comments, she would rather be either on the left side, or the right side of the continent, but not in the middle! Her favorite place is the bottom left where it's warm and dry.

 

We did come across a bit of a hill though. It was on the edge of the valley where the Assiniboine River crosses Highway 1 near Brandon. They were saying on the news that the river was flooding, and sure enough it looked like all the wiggles in the river were being made into one big wide swath. I took this picture from up on the hill, but it seems the hill wasn't high enough to see that much! It was pouring rain, which explains the hazy look.

We left our Truck Stop fairly late in the morning, and drove a ways down the road towards the west. We were far enough west out of Winnipeg that we didn't feel like back tracking to go to a church, which we weren't sure about, probably unfriendly, and which would be on the far (east) side of the city. We wanted to find a campground, and we ended up at the Lions Campground in Virden, Manitoba. It's a full service campground, so Miss Travelaire is all connected up, with tubes going everywhere just like as if she were in the hospital. Water flows in, and water flows out. And electricity flows in, through the thermostat installed before our trip by Eric the electrician ( click here ), and warms everybody up. This picture was taken late in the afternoon, and you can see shadows from the sun, which is peeking through!