Sunday, Monday; October 12, 13, 2008

We arrived in Winnipeg to spend the next two nights at the Red River Expedition Center. Sunday was Canada's Thanksgiving Day to celebrate the harvest. Gail, Susanne and Carol came up with the idea to go out to dinner having a traditional Canadian Thanksgiving Dinner. Gail located a very nice restaurant and the three couples of us separated from the group for dinner. Monday morning a Tour Bus picked us up early and we began a tour of Winnipeg. This city is very European and has a large French contingent. Our first stop was the Asinine Gardens Park. For all you children out there, this is the home of Winnie-the-Poo. He was created in the building pictured. This is a lovely park with gardens, outdoor sculpture, and historic buildings to wander through. Its certainly popular with the locals as people were walking through the park on a cool and damp Sunday morning. Our second stop was the Provincial State House which, considering this was Canada's National Election Day, we were allowed to enter by pre-arrangement. A magnificent building patterned after King Solomon's Temple. Mid-day we stopped at the Central Market area to have lunch in the food court and do some souvenir shopping. In the afternoon we went to what I consider one of the finest historical museums I have ever been in. The museum guide with the aid of exhibits traced the orgin of Manitoba from several thousand years ago to modern times. Take a look at this website. http://www.manitobamuseum.ca/ We finished up the evening with our Caravan Farewell Dinner at a German restaurantand and then, one more nightcap in Bernie and Carol's Motorhome.

Friday, Saturday; October 10,11, 2008.

We boarded the train in Curchill on Thursday night at 10:30 for our rebound trip back to Thompson. This time we had a sleeper compartment with bunk beds. We slept much better than on the previous trip up. We awoke Friday morning to see our first snow of the trip on the ground. Time during the day was past with several of us acting out a murder mystery plot and with the others having to figure out who the murderer was. The photo is Bernie as a German Braumister. We arrived back in Thompson at 8:00 PM to a wet, cold and muddy campground. Saturday morning we struck out for Grand Rapids which is half way to Winnipeq down the west side of Manitoba and is not much more than a fuel stop. We dry camped in a "pull off area" and had a "woody woopee" dinner (our term for a pot luck dinner). Look at a map of the Province of Manitoba. We were driving beside Lake Winniipeq all the way down.

Wednesday, Thursday; October 8, 9, 2008

This was the crescendo we had been building up too for the last twelve months. It wasn't a disappointment! We traveled the Tundra for two days in a Tundra Buggy with our driver/guide Mark driving and occasionally - Gail driving. We saw seven Polar Bears, numerous Artic Hares, Ptarmigan birds, Red Foxes and various bird coveys. Temperatures were forty degrees or so but the winding was howling pushing the wind chill lower. We left the hotel at 8:30 every morning and returned at 5:00 PM. We had breakfast and dinner across the road from the hotel and lunch on the Tundra Buggy. Churchill has a year round population of 800 persons of which two thirds are "first nation" people. The Canadians living here are truly outdoor enthusiasts. The town is wide open from the perspective we live our daily lives in. The community polices itself and we were told they don't have crime problems. Lawbreakers get one chance to recover their senses! A one way ticket out of town takes care of those that can't adjust. If you're wondering about the bears - they come off the Hudson Bay ice in late Spring as the ice is breaking up. They spend the warm months out on the Tundra mating, hibernating and giving birth. In early October they began wondering toward the shore line in anticipation of the ice freeze which will occur by mid November. They spend the cold months on the ice gorging them selves on Seals and building up a layer of fat to live on the following Spring/Summer starting the cycle all over. We made friends with a tour guide whom we will be corresponding with. Would we go back? Maybe in the May/June time frame to witness the migratory birds leaving to head south. This was certainly a once in the life time experience we'll always remember.

Monday, Tuesday; October 6 - 7, 2008

In Thompson MN CA we stayed at the McCreedy Campround along side the Churchill River and a float plane base. Mrs. McCreedy operates the campground and is certainly a very entertaining woman with a lot of stories to tell. Gail spent Monday catching up on laundry and walking around the Thompson towncenter. In the evening we boarded the train for our overnight (and next day!) ride to Churchill on the shores of Hudson Bay. We left our RVs in Mrs. Mcreedy's custody until our return on Friday night the 10th. A word about the train ride. We learned the train is always guaranteed to be late and off the schedule and we certainly learned it is no express. While we had a sleeper compartment, we still had a restless night with the noise and slow moving and swaying of the train all of which is no fault of Canadian Railways. Other than some ocassional sidings, there is a single rail track from Thompson to Churchill which is plus/minus 325 mile long. These tracks are laid over the Trunda and therein is the reason the train schedule is erratic. The tracks are coniually moving around in the soft earth which doesn't provide for high speed rail travel. At times we would slow down to a crawling speed and ocassionally we would have to pull off on a siding and sit for a period of time while a freight train would pass us by. This track is also used to move grain to the shipping port at Churchill where it is sent on to Europe. We arrived in Churchill at 5 PM on Tuesday and procededed to our hotel, The Tundra Inn.

Catching up on the blog; Novv. 1, 2008

If you've been watching our Westward Ho blog and wondering what happened, this message will let you know we didn't get eaten up by the Polar Bears or lost in the Canadian Woods. We made it home fine without any incidents arriving in Chattanooga on Sunday afternoon October 19th. Needless to say, business activities have consumed Bob since we returned and this blog fell thru the cracks. Disappointingly, we also had an issue with our camera that has caused us to erase and lose a number of photos taken between 9/28 and 10/10. We'll catch the blog up on a daily basis and post photos where we can. We're happy to hear so many of you have been watching our trip unfold. We just feel blessed and fortunate we were ale to do it. Regards, Bob & Gail

Friday, Saturdday, Sunday; October 3,4,5, 2008

We’re driving north up the east side of the Province of Manitoba with the destination of Thompson scheduled for Sunday night the 5th. On Friday night the 3rd we stayed at a city owned campground in Dauphine. This area of the Province is heavily settled by descendents from the Ukraine area of Europe. We toured a historic Ukraine Catholic Church in the evening and then we were hosted to dinner by ladies of the church. The evening was concluded with some audience participation in the dancing customs of the Ukraine’s. It was an educational and fun evening for all of us. Saturday the 4th we spent the night dry camping at an Indian Casino at the city named, The Pas. On our drive here we discovered Tamarack Trees for the first time since leaving home. Their colors were changing continually in various shades of yellow as you can see in the attached photo. Sunday the 5th was more of the same scenery as we passed numerous large inland lakes. Just outside of Thompson we stopped at Pisew Falls. See photos attached. Monday we leave via slow passenger train to travel to Churchill MN on Hudson Bay for our much anticipated viewing of the Polar Bears. We return to Thompson Friday the 10th. Having passed the 55th Parallel at this point in our travels, we are getting ever closer to the Arctic Circle. photos to follow

Wednesday, Thursday; October 1-2, 2008

We spent Wednesday night 10/1 in Williston, ND. Oil drilling in and near the county has created a boom in the population with workers coming in from all over the US. No signs of a weak economy here! Bob is beginning to feel like a Nomad. Today he had a haircut at The Super Wall Mart while Gail picked up a few grocery items. Driving through large grain farms and oil rigs, we arrived at our campsite in the Turtle Mountains and at The International Peace Gardens just north of Dunseith, ND and on the Canadian border. The turtle you see in the photo is constructed of discarded vehicle wheels. Here we met up with eleven other coaches and couples to form the Fantasy RV Caravan that would travel into Manitoba and on to Churchill to view the Polar Bear migration there. We closed out the day with a social gathering of the new group members and a celebration of Gail’s 5th year since her cancer surgery. Thursday the 2nd was spent touring the International peace Gardens. Our tour was conducted by the senior gardener. This was a stunning place and a tribute to the international peace keeping efforts of Americans and Canadians. We were all very impressed with the place. The following website will do a better job of describing it than I can. Please take a minute to look at it. http://www.peacegarden.com/ Photos will follow at a later date.