Archives for posts with tag: Alberta

 

This is how I started my journey this morning…practicing my selfie lessons my Jenni taught me! Boy, do I ever look different tonight!

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Jenni taught me selfie art!

If you saw pictures from Idaho, Montana and Oklahoma, then you saw Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba! I dated a man from Saskatchewan a couple of decades ago who was born there and ran away from home at fourteen and never looked back because it had nothing there. I didn’t see anything either and their main road, Hwy. 1 is a divided highway with cross traffic access, variable speed limits ranging from 35 MPH to 68 MPH…give or take translation from MPH to KPH!

It took about twelve hours to drive from Medicine Hat to Winnipeg. Gotta just say it was some of the most boring drive I’ve ever done on my 130,000+ miles driving the  backroads of the US and eastern Canada.

DO’s and DON’Ts:

DO:     Get great audio book to keep you occupied and lots of caffeine to keep you awake on this drive. It’s not a hard drive but a pain. I was lucky to find a great rock n’ roll radio station that helped me push through it. GPS only works until you get to a certain point where the highway was changed and GPS doesn’t know about it. Also, the only time I’ve ever gotten lost was trying to find my hotel in Winnipeg which is buried in the middle of a tiny strip mall between the Dollar General and a bar!

DON’T:    NEVER pay with a credit card at the gas pumps like we do in US. It will eat your credit card and it’s impossible to cancel transaction at the pump. Pump your gas (sometimes a paid employee will pump it) and then you go inside to pay much like we did up until the 1980’s here in states. Don’t rely on GPS alone. Get a current map of areas you want to visit. Even Google screwed up my directions!

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This is what all of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba look like!

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I even got excited to see a train but that really doesn’t count because I love trains.

Was worried that all the Canadian Geese were in Georgia! Guess I don’t have to worry about that any more! If I’d known the Canadians wanted their snow birds back, I’d have packed up as many as I could and brought them back on this trip! They’re aggressive and nasty! The geese not the Canadians!

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Only in Canada will 5:00 traffic stop on both sides of a busy street for a gaggle of Canadian Geese!

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Really?

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Still? The light green, people! This would never happen in Atlanta!

Tomorrow? Thunder Bay. Let’s see how that rolls.

HAPPY TAILS, TALES OR TRAILS…YOUR PICK!

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Not only have I been totally confused about the day of the week this whole trip but where I am because, like today, I could have been in eastern Idaho, western Montana or northern Oklahoma from the looks of things! And, although I was in northern Montana for awhile, it was with Glacier National Park mountain range in my rear view mirror, in my heart and with the impact from Mother Nature’s mystical power which pushed me off the cliff toward my solo voyage across Canada with Alberta as the reminder of places I’d just been.

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Farmland in northern Montana looks a great deal like eastern Idaho!

The cliff, you say? Well, God teaches us to pray believing with the faith of a child and, to do that, it means you “believe” in the power of prayer. I do. Every time I’ve jumped off that proverbial cliff to start my own business or homeschool a recalcitrant child while trying to make money with that business or travel alone across the backroads of US and Canada, I’m doing just that…claiming God as my parachute. Some say I’m brave. Some say I’m crazy. I say I have faith.

I must say that I had a moment or two before Jenni left to go home where I wasn’t sure about that parachute opening, but yesterday’s visit to West Glacier’s t Western Red Cedar grove, that nature walk restored my soul and gave me confidence for this healing journey to continue. So many amazing non-coincidences have been integral parts of it. Miracles of sun rainbows, finding new Chirrens, meeting babies born to some of those Chirrens whose parents weren’t sure if their precious one would ever be born, meeting so many kindred souls and reconnecting with Mother Earth in a way I haven’t been able to do since Ava died. Yep. That parachute is open and God keeps showing me how big it is!

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Long, roads with nothing but fields of cows and crops.

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That’s the storm I’m running away from.

Now, for those of you who have followed my posts thus far, you, too, might be confused about where I was today. Tom (my GPS) even took me down a very long and lonely dirt road, but our 150,000 mile relationship and my parachute kept the devil of doubt out of my soul and helped me embrace the wonders of the dirt road headed toward the border and away from the upcoming storm, above.

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Dirt road, Tom? Really?

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Wish this picture showed how bright these yellow blooms were. There were hundreds of acres of them!

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See that tiny white dot to the right in the grass? That’s a farm. The first one I’ve seen in many miles!

Tomorrow? Twelve hour drive through Saskatchewan (supposed to be a real sleeper) and across Manitoba to Winnipeg.

HAPPY TAILS, TALES OR TRAILS…YOUR PICK!