Day 6: Saskatoon to Calgary

Notes of the day: Saskatoon to Calgary. It’s a sunny crisp day with about 600 kms to Calgary, our final destination. Yipee! It was nice to stop two nights at Angela’s parents place, spend time with her family, be fed home cooked meals by Sylvia, and have a place to call home.

Driving through the Canadian Badlands was amazing as the landscape changes from flat to more hilly and rocky with ancient riverbeds and the maroon-striped canyons. Some of the most extensive dinosaur fossil fields in the world are found here. This is where dinosaurs roamed 70 million years ago! The area’s badlands and cottonwood river habitat are the other significant features that resulted in the Dinosaur Provincial Park’s designation as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1979.  Arriving in Drumheller, the “dinosaur capital of the world”, was fun with the giant T-rex statue you can climb inside and colourful dinosaur sculptures placed throughout the town.

We arrived into Calgary around 5:30 pm, unpacked the SUV, and then celebrated at one of the fav restaurants of Angela and Nick, the Ox and Angela.

Music on the Road….

Here’s a chance to talk about my yogi DJ for the trip. Angela created a play list for our road trip with over 500 songs. One of the many things I appreciate about Angela is her love of music. She always has the right music for cooking, writing, studying until late and hanging out. Our good friend Paul created a CD with 15 great songs for our road trip. He and his wife Jodie are considerate and generous like that – thank you! So there was no lack of good songs and singing en route.

My fav songs from our trip:
– Poker face Lady Gaga
– I got a feeling Black Eyed Peas
– Give me sympathy Metrics
– Girl on fire Alisha Keys
– Paper planes MIA
– Lost together Blue Rodeo
– Hallelujah KD Lang or Leonard Cohen
– Wheat Kings Tragically Hip

What was most memorable moments from the trip:
-The area around Lake Superior especially right after the Soo with spectacular scenery and lakes.
Driving through the prairies for the first time to see the landscape settle and the blue spy expand and fill up the horizon with billowy clouds. It was my first time to the prairies!

-Katherine Cove in northern Ontario, a perfect stop on a perfect day, sunny and hot. We put our feet in the sand, dipped them in the brisk waters of Lake Superior, and played on the beach

-Visiting Winnipeg, the birth place of my good friend Barb and many other friends. Visiting Saskatoon to see Angela’s home town and meet her family.

-The Floating Gardens in Osler, north of Saskatoon. Having a tour from a four-year old and her grandfather and then a Mennonite style lunch that included freshly baked buns, borscht, sauerkraut, relishes, and organic greens from the greenhouses.

-Any night after a long eight-hour drive, when we would relax in our hotel rooms with good wine, delicious take out, in particular Aurora pizza in the Soo and Spicy Noodle House peanut soup in Winnipeg, and watch TV, something we both don’t do much of.

-My chocolate dipped soft ice cream on a hot sunny day at Twisted Sister in Chamberlain, Saskatchewan.

-The changing landscape and culture of Canada, from Ontario to Manitoba to Saskatchewan to Alberta.

-My first good coffee after three days at the Starbucks in Winnipeg. It’s the small things that you miss on the road like good coffee and fresh salad

-The chance to spend time with a good friend to get to one another better, to have in depth conversations about our lives in the past, present and future, to sing along with the songs playing, to laugh and giggle along the way at things like the funny names of lakes/rivers/creeks we passed such as Mom Lake that is right beside Dad’s Lake but not too close, and share in an incredible adventure.

In my 20s I used to take for granted my adventures, thinking that I would return to places, meet people again, and have lots of time to do things over again. Now older, I know that this may happen but often it will not. That’s fine because even if you do go back it’s never the same as we change, the world changes. The best thing we can do is to be mindful and savour all the juicy, spicy and bitter parts of life that are placed on the plates before us.

Thanks Angela for being such a great driver, road buddy and friend. And my thanks also to family and friends we met on and off the road. I leave Angela in Calgary in the good hands of her partner Nick, starting an exciting new job, and living in a beautiful apartment with a view.

Where am I going next? Follow me and you’ll see…