Day 05 - Winnipeg to Moose Jaw

Last night, we walked to the Bistro Dansk for dinner. It is a little family owned restaurant that serves Danish meals. We had their chicken schnitzel. It was amazing. And the portions would easily feed us four times so we definitely took left overs back in case a late night craving struck. We also undulged in their chocolate eclaire. Wow was that good!

We had a great night sleep and were treated to a yummy breakfast this morning at the River Gate Inn. Michele had some scrambled eggs, bacon, and toast. Rob went with the waffles and genuine Canadian Maple Syrup.

Our appetites satisfied, we said our good byes to the inn owners, the Heinrichs, and were on the road around 8:30am.

The Trans-Canada Highway from Winnipeg to Moose Jaw has very different scenery from the views we saw yesterday between Thunder Bay and Winnipeg. Today's road was a 4 lane divided highway, very straight, and very flat.

Very little in the way of trees. Instead we had long distance views of agricultural fields. The fields were quite colorful with blues, yellows, different shades of greens, and even some reds. With the puffy clouds casting shadows, we were well entertained with non-stop beautiful vistas.

We weren't sure what the various crops were but we saw a few fields of corn, some sun flowers and what we suspect were potatoes. Regardless, it made for a very scenic ride.

We saw these interesting structures. Perhaps storm shelters or Dooms Day Prepper bunkers?

And this barn is one of the nicest looking barns we have seen. You could put quite a few "toys" in there!

The grain silos were quite plentiful.

The temperatures today were wonderfully cool. Starting out in the mid-60's and making it only to the low 70's. A stiff north-westerly breeze kept the temperatures down along with the Wing's fuel mileage. We averaged only 32mpg over a 137 mile stretch between Brandon, MB and Broadview, SK.

We saw a field of large wind turbines taking advantage of that stiff breeze. The rotors were moving at a good clip!

Fortunately, all of the road construction today was confined to the east bound side of the highway.

During today's ride, we crossed into our third province, Saskatchewan. We also are now in the Mountain Standard time zone were we will remain for the next week or so.

We stopped for lunch in Grenfell. Most of the town's businesses were closed since it was Sunday.

Alan's Family Restaurant, however, was open so we decided to give it a try. It was an interesting experience. We seated ourselves at the prompting of the waitress who also took our drink order. We then waited for several minutes while other patrons were seated and provided menus. We asked our waitress for a menu and she acted a little surprised. She had assumed that we would just be taking part in the Sunday Smorg. A buffet of Chinese noodles, pancakes, eggs, bacon, some fruits, and deserts. Folks were eating this stuff like it was the cat's ass of buffets...err...smorgs.

Well we weren't really in the mood for Chinese noodles and pancakes so we ordered off the menu. Michele ordered a club sandwich. The sandwich was quickly made and delivered to a table of 90 year olds who had already finished their smorg, where it sat for a few minutes before the waitress figured out it was Michele's sandwich and she had placed it at the wrong table. (We think this must have been the waitress' first day as a waitress, or in a restaurant ever, since she didn't seem to get how things work.) With that all taken care of, Michele was finally able to enjoy her sandwich. It looked very good with fresh tomatoes and lettuce and a very thick piece of chicken breast. Unfortunately, the chef had forgotten to remove the sticker from the tomato. Fortunately, Michele noticed this before eating it.

So if you are ever in Grenfell on a Sunday and are looking for some food, I suggest Alan's Family Restaurant IF you are in the mood for a smorg. Ordering off the menu (if you actually get one) seems to confuse the staff.

With that comedic lunch stop done, we continued west for that last 2 hour push for Moose Jaw. The same kinds of scenery and temperatures persisted for the reminder of the ride making it quite enjoyable.

We went around the city of Regina via the perimeter highway (the local highway around the city) which by the looks of it is a pretty large city.

We arrived in Moose Jaw at around 3pm local time (5pm EST). We were greeted by Max the Moose.

We checked into our hotel an hour earlier than we had planned as Rob had thought the time zone change wasn't until tomorrow, and took our early advantage of our early arrival to do the laundry.

For dinner, we walked about a mile into town and ate at Original Joes. Rob ordered some poutine. Poutine is a Canadian dish. French fries, gravy, and cheese curds. How can you go wrong? Michele ordered linguine and tomato with grilled chicken. Rob didn't eat much of it because he had stuffed himself with the Poutine. Who knew french fries topped with gravy and cheese could be so filling?

Tomorrow we journey to Alberta and Waterton Lakes National Park, the first of our two official destinations for this vacation. The scenery will likely change quite dramatically from prairie to mountainous. We hope this great riding weather continues!