Alaska Trip - Day 3

Didn't sleep well last night at the hostel. Probably because there was no air conditioning. Yesterday was one of the hottest days of the year so far for Winnipeg, but a storm last night did cool things down.

So we overslept a bit, and then had some GPS issues, so were late to church this morning. It was a speed Mass when we did get there, and before we barely had a chance to catch our breathe it was over. As expected, we were the youngest people in the church.

I really like Winnipeg.The city has a lot of character. It's a lot like Minneapolis.

After we reached Portage La Prairie, we decided to take some side roads on our way to Saskatoon in an attempt to take in some more scenery. You see, Manitoba has some "mountains" that many visitors don't know about, probably because the "mountains" are smaller than the Ozarks.

We headed north toward Dauphin, Manitoba, and then west, right in between both Riding Mountain National Park and Duck Mountain Provincial Park. It was indeed more scenic than further south, I presume.

Right after we crossed this body of water (I don't remember it's name already) we entered Saskatchewan and a new time zone. Around here there were many ponds, swamps, and, of course, lakes. Oh, it was around this time that I realized I left my pillow back at the hostel in Winnipeg!

The rest of Saskatchewan was pretty boring. We spent around 13 hours on the road today, and the all-too-familiar landscape started to drag us down for the first time this trip. We stopped for dinner in Saskatoon, a nice but boring town. However, I did get some Starbucks there so that was exciting.

Actually, the real excitement came later! Just after we went through North Battleford, Saskatchewan, I saw a black bear! It appeared to be a teenager, and was hanging out in someone's field behind a fence. He ran away as we drove past. I couldn't believe I had already seen one. Steven missed it because he was driving at the time, but he did see a big buck earlier today. I wish I had a picture of it. This picture was taken a little bit after I saw the bear...

Our next excitement came when we almost ran out of gas near Marshall. We arrived to a gas station only to find it closed. (There are a lot of full service gas stations with no pay at the pump around here, btw) With the gas light on the next 20 miles, we barely made it here to Lloydminster, a city that sits both in Saskatchewan and Alberta.

So we are staying the night at a motel in Lloydminster. Our goal is to get a good night's sleep tonight, because we will probably be sleeping in the car tomorrow night. We didn't make it to Edmonton, but soon enough tomorrow we will be there to check out the city.