We had an easy ride today and made great time (with the help of a time zone change!) Our day was about 430 miles, not much less than yesterday, but we had only two stops the entire day. Rob discovered that Michele's camera had the compensation awry, so with that fixed and a quick lesson on how to adjust it, pictures from here on out should be brighter.
We slept well last night at the new Marriott Town Suites, really nice and quiet rooms there. Dinner at Kelsey's Grill was really good, quesadillas, salad, mojito and a gigantic brownie dessert to go.
Michele had a celebrity spotting at breakfast this morning, an older gent who she saw on a billboard in Michigan. She is still researching his name. We were on the road at 8:10am. We are learning how to get gas at the gas stations with our non-international credit cards. Canada has the chip system and ours sometimes works at the pump, sometimes not. With a full tank, we hit the road.
About 58 minutes into our ride today, we crossed over into the Central Time Zone. That meant once we were in CST, the time was 8:08am and we had ridden about 60 miles and had yet to leave. Confused?
Our route took us slightly north through the Lake District. We were a bit anxious about this area being remote, but it turned out to be scenic and sparsely traveled by cars or trucks. We had the road to ourselves at many points during the morning. We passed through a handful of very small towns, population 1000 in some, which seemed a lot compared to the size of the town.
The scenery was mainly evergreens, very dense forests of them. Some natural, some for logging, we suspect. And tons of lakes. Temperatures were in the low 60s and got near 70 once we arrived in Dryden for lunch. With a population of 8000 it was a metropolis and by far the largest town since Thunder Bay (about 200 miles)!
After lunch, our drive was noticeably more populated, relatively speaking. Just a one lane highway, but with two lane passing lanes at points allowed us to get by slower cars. More lakes surrounded us and the scenery started to change to more rocky and hilly terrain.
About 120 miles after lunch, we crossed over from Ontario to Manitoba (our 2nd Province for the trip).
About 90 miles from Winnipeg, suddenly the forest ended and it looked like we were in the farmlands of the Midwest. Flat as far as we could see, with the highway straight as an arrow.
We took a break just a few miles outside of Downtown Winnipeg at a major gas stop and convenience store (where one could buy a new purse (which Michele doesn't need) or magic mineral rock if so desired). Rob chatted with a man who mentioned he wanted a Goldwing. He described it as "the cat's ass for motorcycle touring". We think this is perhaps Canadian slang for the cat's meow. Another man just got his motorcycle license and a new blacked out Harley Sportster 883 and was out for a ride. He told us about Canadian motorcycle licensing and we learned another local term: "cash grab" whereby the government is milking people for money.
Our final route took us through downtown Winnipeg and across the river.
Our B&B is the River Gate Inn, a gorgeous tudor style house in a tree-lined section of town with interesting older homes. There is a pool out back so we may indulge!
Tomorrow we set out for Moose Jaw, SK. We hope for an encore of today's weather!
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