Thursday, July 19, through Thursday, July 27, 2012:  Eight Days in Canada:
The trip to Lethbridge, Alberta, was an easy 187 miles.  We are staying at the Bridgeview RV Resort, a very nice place, with a view (no surprise) of a nearby railroad bridge which is amazing---more than a mile long and more than 300 feet high at its highest point.

Lethbridge is a nice city, the largest in Alberta---south of Calgary, anyway.  It has 85,000 people. (Calgary has more than 1,000,000.)  When we got here it was very hot and humid.  We could only run one air conditioner since there is only 30 amp service at each site, so it did not cool off completely inside the trailer until sundown.  But we survived.

Friday morning we took a 185-mile (round trip) excursion to Waterton Lakes National Park, located just across the border from our Glacier National Park.  Other than for purposes of official administration, they are considered to be one park.  Waterton is a beautiful place.

The masterpiece in the park is the Prince of Wales Hotel, built in 1927 and named for the British prince who later became King Edward VIII before famously abdicating in 1936 to marry an American divorcee, Wallis Simpson---part of the plot of The King's Speech recently.  (The current queen, Elizabeth II, was his niece, of course.)  It is a charming old hotel,

that, because there is no insulation to fend off the inevitable cold weather after the summer season, is only open from June 8 through September 18 each year.  The view from the hotel is breathtaking.

Just below the hotel is a small village at the head of the Upper Waterton Lake that is a year-round resort---water sports in the spring and summer, cross-country skiing and snowshoeing the rest of the time. 

Almost all of the buildings have a Swiss chalet look to them.  Very attractive.  We walked along the waterfront.  Ramsey loved it.

On the way back, we stopped at the town of Cardston, thinking of having lunch.  It is located on the reservation of the Blood Tribe of Indians.  It reminded us of the reservations in Arizona and New Mexico.  There was not a lot of apparent modern progress.  A little depressing.  We decided to wait until we returned to Lethbridge to eat.  We ate at the Top Pizza & Spaghetti House.  Delicious.

Saturday took us to Swift Current, Saskatchewan, 240 miles away.  We are definitely in the Canadian plains.  We saw nothing on the way here but flat agricultural scenery.  Calming, but boring. 

The highlight was going through the city of Medicine Hat, on our way out of Alberta.  I've always loved that name.  (In two days we will get to go through Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan.  I've always loved that name, too.) 

We are stayting at the Pondarosa [sic] RV Resort, on Ponderosa Trail.  It is quite rural, kind of funky, but OK.  We can handle two days.

There is definitely nothing to do in Swift Current, even though there are 18,624 residents, so we will probably just relax before continuing eastward.

Sunday morning, Becky took a bike ride in the area, and ran across the beginnings of some sort of dog program at a local park. 

We went back in the early afternoon just as they were starting a dog agility contest.  Apparently, they regularly hold these things in a lot of places in Canada and the U.S.  And they move them around.  Today was Swift Current's turn for 2012.  People came from several provinces to run their dogs through the obstacle course.  It was fun to watch.  And the dogs were amazing.

We returned home to an early dinner of Cioppino (from Trader Joe's).  Yum.

Monday started out like any other day, but quickly turned into a bit of a challenge.  Just before we left Swift Current, Becky noticed that the refrigerator information panel was displaying an error code to the effect that some switch had been deactivated.  We had no idea what that meant, and we didn’t know whether it meant that the refrigerator was no longer working, but decided to look into it as soon as we got to our next scheduled destination---Regina, Saskatchewan---157 miles away.



The road to Regina---Canada’s Route 1, the Trans-Canada Highway, which we have enjoyed driving on since entering the country several days ago---suddenly became worthy of being in a third-world country. The whole ride today was very rough and bumpy.  I’m surprised I still have any fillings in my teeth or china in our cabinets.

Once we arrived in Regina (the provincial capital, rhymes with “vagina“), and after several phone conversations with various people, and a trip to a local RV dealer (with the trailer), we determined that the refrigerator was no longer working, and that the Norcold factory agreed to send the necessary replacement part to a contact of theirs in Minnesota, where we will be next Monday.  (Since we will be in Minnesota, there will be no delays in having the part go through Customs in both the U.S. and Canada.)  The factory even made the installation appointment for us.  All under warranty.  Yea!

The prospect of our being without a refrigerator for a week was not exciting.  Fortunately, the tech (Scott, the service manager at Traveland RV) who diagnosed the problem offered us a temporary solution---not authorized by the factory, but effective.  The fix involves bypassing a safety switch (thereby taking a slight risk of damage to the refrigerator while we await the permanent solution next week), so he would not do it himself (theoretically, to avoid potential liability), but he showed me how to do it.  It took all of two minutes, mostly spent looking through my parts inventory, and it worked.  The refrigerator is working again.  We will keep our fingers crossed for the next week.

We are staying at the Buffalo Overlook RV Park.  It’s a little strange, but fine.  I don’t see any buffalos.  This has been a stressful day, so we’ll just cool it tonight.

Tuesday morning we went to the Saskatchewan capitol building.  The legislature is out of session, so there was nothing going on.  We took a guided tour of the building, which is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year.

It’s really impressive, though with understated elegance, with floors, walls, and columns made of marble from around the world.  And it has a lovely park (named after Queen Elizabeth II, and containing a bronze statue of her on a horse) across the street, with a beautiful man-made lake beyond that.  Lake Wascana is in the center of a lovely park that surrounds the entire area.

Tuesday afternoon, we were joined by Mary Rucklos Hampton, a high school classmate of Becky’s, who has lived in Regina for many years.  They hadn't seen each other since they graduated 42 years ago.  The two of them pored over Mary’s yearbook and Becky’s booklet from the most recent class reunion.  They seemed to thoroughly enjoy recalling the foibles of their classmates.

Tuesday night we met Mary and her husband, Eber, for dinner at the Fireside Bistro in downtown Regina.  Nice place.  On the way there, the skies opened up and we had an amazing downpour---for only 15 minutes. Then the sun came out again. Weird.

Eber and Mary are both PhDs.  Mary is a Professor of Psychology at the University of Regina. 

Eber, who is a full-blooded Chickasaw born in Oklahoma, is now retired, but was most recently a professor at the University of Regina, and before that was the President of The First Nations University of Canada, located on the grounds of the University of Regina.  ("First Nation" is a term describing some of the indiginous people of North America.)  After dinner, we took a brief tour of his former university. Very impressive place.

We really enjoyed being with the two of them.
 
Wednesday involved a 218-mile trek to Brandon, Manitoba, our last stop in Canada for a while.  The road from Regina (still Route 1) was better, but still not up to its earlier standard. 

Otherwise, it was an uneventful trip.  We are staying in a prime site at the Meadowlark Campground, a much nicer park than the one in Regina.  Brandon (Population:  46,000) is the second-largest city in Manitoba (after Winnipeg), and has mostly an agricultural focus.  (Its nickname is "Wheat City" for obvious reasons.)  We took a spin through the city, and found it to be civilized if a bit quaint. 

Other than Becky's inevitable bike ride and Ramsey's constant walks, we did very little here.