Day Five -- Medicine Hat to Canmore

Today was our shortest driving day, after pulling a long one on Thursday. We had breakfast near our hotel at a Tim Horton's. If you don't know, this chain is found all over Canada, and now in some of the border states. Higher quality food than the standard American fast food chains.

Maple oatmeal, muffin, and yogurt with berries

As we moved west through Alberta, the land began to roll more; we obviously were leaving the plains behind. As we neared Calgary, there was a sign to Banff that left the TC1 Highway we'd been on since before Winnipeg. Our GPS didn't like it and showed that we were in the middle of the field. It wasn't on our Rand McNally 2012 atlas map, either. But we stuck it out and found a great bypass that went all the way around Calgary. It rejoined TC1 on the western side of the city. What a view to see the Rockies coming up ahead of us.

Lake on the way to Canmore

Our hotel is the Rundle Mountain Inn in Canmore, the first town in the valley. Banff is about 17 kilometers north; we'll go there tomorrow. We settled into our hotel after lunch and Dan took off for a bike ride. I went to the indoor pool hoping for a good swim but it must have been filled with glacier melt! I made it across the pool once, then left and took a long walk!

Lunch at Crazyweed; incredible Thai chicken salad

The view from our room

Our room is on the top at the end; basic but fine

Dan ready to ride up the trail toward Banff

Day Four -- Winnipeg to Medicine Hat

We had a lovely evening with Bonnie -- dinner of shrimp and veggies over tortellini. After eating we drove down to The Forks, the area where the two major rivers meet. It is also a center for some of the First Nations groups.

We got off a bit before 8:00 this morning. We have two days to get to our hotel near Banff, and decided to make this the long one. We went clear across Saskatchewan and into Alberta, where we are spending the night at Medicine Hat. We saw lots of interesting scenery along the way. We also gained another hour as we entered the mountain time zone at the provincial border.

The day began cloudy, and shortly after seeing the sky below, we drove through a severe thunderstorm. Beautiful to see it coming across the plains.

Enormous fields of canola

Hay bales in the median -- what a great idea!

Many very large hay fields with new bales

Lunch near Moose Jaw, Dan had mushroom soup and a chicken salad sandwich. We were pleased to find such good bread at a roadside joint!

Salt from a potash mine

Day Three - Thunder Bay to Winnipeg

We are now in Winnipeg, Manitoba. We were surprised how far west Ontario goes -- it was afternoon before we crossed the border (and we thought Thunder Bay was western Ontario!). We had such a nice visit with the Dunns. Eleanor made a tasty Moroccan casserole and Greek salad.

Not sure why we are leaning!

We stopped for lunch at a nice wayside picnic area. We saw these all along the way.

Lake at picnic area

We have come over 1200 miles. After crossing into Manitoba the prairies began to open up after many miles of forests and lakes.

Tonight we are with Bonita Janzen in Winnipeg. More about that tomorrow!

Day Two -- Wawa to Thunder Bay

We woke up to a cool morning and fog in Wawa, but it was burning off by the time we walked downtown to the restaurant for breakfast. The drive was stunning, with view of Lake Superior off and on to the left and multiple lakes and rivers off to the right. My favorite lakes were two medium sized ones named Mom Lake and Dad Lake and a small one named Baby Lake.

Gravel mountain

Interior lake

Lake Superior bay

We stopped for a picnic lunch at Nipigon and drove down to the marina on a bay. We were excited to see that this was the home of Paddle-to-the-Sea, a favorite childhood book in both Dan's and my families when we were growing up. They have a park that is  dedicated to the story, with children's play areas based on various scenes from the book.

Nipigon Bay

Statue of Paddle-to-the-Sea

At the end of the day we arrived in Thunder Bay, where we had a great visit with friends Ray and Eleanor Dunn from Woodstock in the early 1980s. Picture of them tomorrow!

Day One - Goshen to Wawa, Ont.

In a few weeks the WOSA-NA reunion will be held in Seattle, Washington. We decided this would be a great opportunity to do that long-planned drive to the west coast. We started off this morning, heading due north through Michigan. We are crossing Canada and coming home through the northern US. It was a pretty ordinary driving day. It began with bright skies (still no sign of rain in Indiana). We had some light rain between Sault Ste. Marie and Wawa.

We stopped in Petoskey, Michigan, for lunch--burgers for both of us. Mine was unusual, with lots of sliced green olives on it. Delicious as long as you like olives (I do).

Soon we came to the Mackinac Bridge which crosses over into the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. We could see Mackinac Island from the bridge and remembered the good time we had staying there two years ago (unfortunately, not at the Grand Hotel, the largest white building in the photo).

You can just barely see the Grand!

At Sault Ste. Marie, MI, we crossed over the Soo Straits into Canada. I couldn't get a shot of the bridge or the locks, which we could see below us. The bridge railing was positioned perfectly to prevent photography. When we went through Canadian customs, the officer asked us why were were coming to Canada. We said we were sight-seeing and visiting friends in Vancouver. He looked astonished and said "You're going the wrong way!" We assured him we knew what we were doing and drove on.

Our original schedule had us stopping for the night in Sault Ste. Marie, but it was only about 3:30 so we headed on. We knew there was nothing much between SSM and Wawa, a small town on the northeast of Lake Superior. But we did stop at a heavily advertised Indian shop, the Agawa Crafts.

These moccasins reminded me of the ones we bought in Colorado Springs on our honeymoon in 1965!

The merchandise was truly overwhelming.

Once we got to Wawa and found a motel room, we took a walk down to the small lake on the edge of downtown, then returned to a picnic supper in our room.

Looking down at our car (notice Dan's bike) and a group of motorcycles from our room's balcony.

Wawa Lake, calm and pleasant in the early evening.

I guess we aren't in the US any more!

Tomorrow we head to Thunder Bay.

July 4

For many, many years, my parents hosted a July Fourth party at their home in Topeka (Indiana). Topeka always had many events, with games and food at the park, a parade, buggy races, and fireworks. Most of my family (the Lehmans) were there, and many of the Linds came regularly. (Our parents knew each other in college and continued their friendship through the years.) My mother moved to Indianapolis just before we moved to Goshen in 2006. I have continued the custom of family gathering for this summer holiday. Unfortunately, none of the Lehmans are nearby and only a few of them have come. But the Linds gather in good numbers. This year we had 21 of us together for a supper of barbecued chicken (from the Topeka Lions Club, as the tradition was). The rest is simple. James and Kate bring potato salad made from their own potatoes (red, white and blue!), Kathy brings veggies and her special dill dip, others bring drinks or whatever occurs to them. This year Kathy and Matthew weren't here so I made the dip. Ice cream sundaes and brownies made a simple dessert.

Our weather has been stifling but we managed to keep fairly cool and enjoy ourselves in our spacious house. Four generations were here from our 93-year-old patriarch to the 4-year-old twins. A good time was had by all.

Dip, veggies, chips, baked beans

Barbecued chicken, potato salad

Dirk V with his knitting and the twins

Some of our family and friends

During the morning, before people arrived, Dan, Anjali, Domingos and I went to Topeka. Before picking up the chicken, we visited the Historical Society Museum, which is in the old railroad depot. Many of the items in the collection are from people I knew all my life. Two special items are shown below.

Sign from my dad's medical practice, early 1980s

My dad's Army uniform, 1946-48

Amazing Summer Sky

It's two o'clock on a hot summer afternoon. Suddenly the house is dark. We go outside to see what is happening and a few drops begin to fall. Here is what the sky looked like. We are in severe drought conditions in northern Indiana; this may bring a little rain, but I'm sure it is just a passing thunderstorm that won't help very much.

Mexican Food in Goshen

Many of the regular readers of my blog like my posts about food. I decided to add a note about food in Goshen. We do have a number of good restaurants here, probably more than might be expected for the size of the town (about 30,000+). One thing we do have is lots of options for Mexican food; we have a fairly high percentage of Hispanic residents. A couple of weeks ago we had the dishes shown below.

Dan's special enchiladas with rice and salad

My chili rellenos with rice and beans