L2O2

It’s hard to believe that it has been nearly a month since our last update. Most of that time has been spent in Saskatoon. My father is very ill and we juggled our schedule a bit to allow us to spend an extended period of time. So not a lot of sightseeing has happened but here are the highlights.

September 11-19 We spent the first few days visiting with family and catching up on the news. The weather was cold when we arrived, but true to form, improved substantially after our arrival. My sister and her partner, my brother and his wife, and Lynn and myself all headed up to the family cabin at Little Bear Lake for the weekend. Now you have to know a little bit about our cabin. You see no matter what the weather is anywhere else, you can count on it to be raining there. So on our way up on Friday the weather was great until we got to about sixty miles from ‘the lake’…rain. My brother arrived about six o’clock the same day, great weather to about a mile from ‘the lake’… rain. Oh well, it was a great weekend with just us ‘kids’. We even got to cut down a few trees!

September 20-26 There’s a lot to be said about vacationing at your parents’ house. There is lots of time to visit, eat, snack, play games, and well, you know, reminisce about the past, discuss the present and dream about the future. We did a lot of that this week. Lynn, our niece Kimberley, and sister-in-law Jean, went on a mini road trip on the weekend to a twisted poplar grove near Spier. This twisted grove thing is really quite erie. All of the other trees in this area grow as normal poplar do – tall and relatively straight. This small clump for some reason do not. They are all mature trees but have grown up gnarled and twisted into some of the most bizarre shapes. This could be a fun place at Halloween!

Then they went on to Fort Battleford National Historic Site in Battleford. Fort Battleford was prominent during the Riel Rebellion in 1885 and, as most forts do, served to protect the citizens of Battleford and surrounding area in the meantime.

While Lynn and the girls were galavanting around the countryside, I and my brother, Mark, spent a quiet and relaxing day fishing at my brother’s secret fishing hole. It would have been quite a soothing day if not for the two fish that interrupted our quiet reverie. These fish were way too exciting for me to handle! After all, trolling around and around a lake with a fishing rod in your hands and nothing else to do is quite hypnotic!

September 27-28 This next little bit is about goose hunting, so skip this if that doesn’t tickle your fancy. I have been out several times ‘spotting’ (looking) for feeding spots of geese. After several attempts I find one and so we set up a shoot with my brother and several of his friends for the next day. The day is lousy for goose hunting – sunny and will eventually turn to about 70 degrees. But we manage to take a few from about 25,000 total birds. The next day I am able to hunt with one of my best friends Rick Stilling and manage a few more birds from the same field. So all told not a bad two days.

September 29-30 We are now making preparations for our departure on October 1st. These past three weeks have been a great break and a wonderful visit. It has been filled with a few tears, great Boggle games, laughs, great conversations and some heated debates. But the urge to travel is once again upon us and we do have a few other people and places to meet and see. We’re getting very good at saying good-bye, but this one hurts just a little more than all the others, so through teary eyes we say goodbye to Saskatoon, family, and friends.

L to R back Ellen, Dad, Mom, Jean – front Lawrie, Kimberley, Mark