Day 4 (Monday) was definitely the most boring part of the trip. How would I describe the Prairies thus far? As boring as everyone said for sure!! Straight, straight, flat, straight, flat, occasional hill, slight turn, flat, flat, slight turn, straight... Within the first hour I was longing for the treed landscape of Northern Ontario and the winding, curvy roads. It's funny how you don't appreciate your own province until you've had a look at the other side!
The drive was fairly uneventful, and I didn't take many pictures as there wasn't much to see. Fields stretched on for miles... Open sky for what seemed like days... No cops were fooling me here – that's for sure! We made a quick stop in Brandon and then continued on to Indian Head (where I had planned to stay for the night). Unfortunately I felt somewhat uneasy in Indian Head. The town is small and seemed somewhat run down. The campground was right beside the town with no fences or perimeter boundary...
So I decided to keep going and try to find another place to stay. I ended up stopping in Regina where I stole WIFI from McDonald's to look up and reserve a campsite near Moose Jaw.
The campground was quite out of the way... I drove a long way down a dirt road and suddenly a lake appeared in front of me. It was quite surreal and seemed out of place in the flat, dry picture I had been looking at for most of the day. The campground was nice... if not somewhat out of the ordinary. They had peacocks running around! There are also a lot of Roughriders fans here – everyone has banners and flags up on their RV's. Who knew Canadians could actually take their football seriously? :P
On Day 5 (today) I decided to drive straight through the 7 hours to Okotoks. I had originally planned to make a stop at Cypress Hills Provincial Park, but I was exhausted and ready to be done with driving for a few days! I will visit the Provincial Park some weekend soon when I am ready to break out the tent again! I was up around 6 am so packed up the campsite and headed out right away. Was lucky enough to catch the start of the sunrise over the Prairies...
This drive was also fairly uneventful. Charger and I stopped for breakfast at a truck stop diner and the waitress was nice enough to let Charger come and hang out on the patio while I enjoyed breakfast and read a book. Other than that I drove straight through to Medicine Hat where I stopped to see the world's tallest Tee Pee!
Just after Strathmore the Rocky mountains appeared in the distance. I wanted to take some pictures, but the day was hazy so I decided to wait and I will post some pictures later... It was pretty unbelievable though... having gone from winding treed wilderness, to rolling hills, across flat prairie, and then all of a sudden these beautiful mountains appear in the distance... I am excited to see them up close!
I arrived in Okotoks around 2 pm (which would be 4 pm in Ontario), and met Cherie who will be my roommate for the next few months... She is amazing! She made the same trip here 3 years ago, and it feels like she really wants to help me get accustomed to things. Charger and her became fast friends and we took him down the trails that run through the town and for a swim in the river. I think he is going to be happy here – I hope I will be too!
Overall, the trip has been an interesting adventure. It was difficult at times, but I have to trust that this journey will be all that I hoped it would be, and worth all that I left behind. I know it is cliché, but I like to think that whatever is meant to be will be and that life has a way of surprising you. I know that I stayed true to myself, and I will continue to do just that – always hoping that it won't steer me wrong.
Found this while perusing the internet tonight, and thought it summed up my trip and the last few days quite well: A Taoist story tells of an old man who accidentally fell into the river rapids leading to a high and dangerous waterfall. Onlookers feared for his life. Miraculously, he came out alive and unharmed downstream at the bottom of the falls. People asked him how he managed to survive. “I accommodated myself to the water, not the water to me. Without thinking, I allowed myself to be shaped by it. Plunging into the swirl, I came out with the swirl. This is how I survived.|”
No comments:
Post a Comment