The Journey

Here I am. I am sitting in MY house on MY sofa in northern Saskatchewan. In truth, neither are actually mine, they belong to the northern lights school division but as long as I am here and teaching I will call them MINE.

So much has happened since I left Stratford to come to the small town/village of La Loche and many people have asked me to share my travel experiences. So here it is .... four states, two provinces, and one long car ride make up this story.

DAY 1: Leave Straford for Marquette, Michigan

The first day on the road was filled with a mixture of excitement and anxiety. My mom, dad and I piled into the car ... actually it was more like squeezed into the car to begin the trek. I had piled so much stuff into my car I couldn't even see out the windows. It was a beautiful sunny day, perfect for an adventure. Our first stop was the border and that is where the anxiety really started. With so much stuff we thought for sure we would get pulled over for a search. Luckily, after showing the border attendant (what is the proper title for the border crew??) some papers to prove I had a job waiting for me, he let us through. Our next stop was a very important one ... Birch Run for some last minute shopping at the Prime Outlets and Meijer's and of course lunch at Bob Evans. I love their cheesey baked potato soup. So good! Mom and I played a game during the long drive: we counted how many abandoned cars we saw on the side of the road and the number of deer we saw. The results: 4 abandoned cars, 1 live deer, 4 dead deer, an abundance of road kill and a partridge in a pear tree. The best part of the day, for mom and dad, not for me, was when we crossed the Mackinac bridge. The folks thought it was pretty awesome because we could see both Lake Superior and Lake Michigan. I hate bridges and that's all I got to say about that. I will admit that we saw lots of nice country. The scenery was nothing short of spectacular. After a very long day on the road, 12 hours of driving, we arrived in Marquette, Michigan at 9:45pm. We thought that we would have no trouble finding a room but ... we were wrong. After stopping at a couple nicer places we finally found a room to rest our weary heads at the Ramada Inn. I advise all of you good people that if you ever find yourself in Marquette, Michigan, do NOT stay at the Ramada Inn. That's all I have to say about that. Some good news: my ear plugs worked.

DAY 2: Start-Marquette, Michigan ... End-Fargo, North Dakota

We ate breakfast at Big Boy and then we were on our way. Day 2's forecast consisted of fog and light rain. Again we saw some deer, unfortunately not alive. We arrived in state #2, Wisconsin, at 12 noon. Again the scenery was stunning. Mom had her notebook with her and noted a few places along the way that looked like they would be nice vacation spots. I have the names and locations if anyone is at all interested. We stopped in Superior, Wisconsin for lunch at Perkins. It was actually very cold and foggy here. After lunch we arrived in state #3, Minnesota; it is here that I raced a train. I'm not kidding. I won. A tornado watch was announced and I kept imagining scenes from the movie "Twister" and what it would be liked to be swept away. Luckily, I didn't find out. We traveled through the small town of Frazee which is the home of the world's largest turkey. We didn't see it but ironically we did see lots and smell lots of turkeys. We arrived in state #4, North Dakota, at 8pm our time (7pm North Dakota time) where we stayed at an Americinn (in Fargo). This place was much nicer and cheaper then the Ramada Inn the night before. We went to Hooters for dinner and then called it a night.

DAY 3: Start-Fargo, North Dakota .... End-Weyburn, Saskatchewan

Forecast: clear and beautiful. What can I say about my surroundings? The terrain is ..... flat. We saw lots of fields of sunflowers. We heard the song "Happy Trail to you" on the radio which brought back many memories. Aunt Laurel if you're reading this, I'm willing to bet you've starting singing the song. :) In Kenmare, which is close to the Canadian border, we saw numbers made from stones in the hills. My guess is that people passing through left their mark by mapping out the year that they were there in stones. Numbers dated back as far as the 60s and as recent as 09. It was pretty cool. The one thing I did notice on this part of the trek was the abundance of bugs and they all managed to run into my car. It was disgusting. I shiver in disgust thinking about it now, thus, I move on. As we got closer to the Canadian border we saw tons of oil rigs. We arrived at the border at 5pm (4pm Saskatchewan time). He didn't ask many questions and once again we had no problems crossing. He did ask if any modifications were made to the car while we were in the states and mom found this question odd. We arrived in Weyburn, Sask at 5:30pm and had dinner at Pump Jacks. Food = good; Service = slow. We stayed at a brand new Ramada Inn and had a great night sleep. My dad got up in the middle of the night and needing a drink reached for the coke bottle sitting out. What he had forgotten in his sleepy haze was that the bottle actually contained cherry whisky. That woke him up. Apparently there were lots of trains passing by throughout the night but I did not hear them. The ear plugs worked really well.

DAY 4: Weyburn, Saskatchewan - Prince Albert, Saskatchewan

Weather = good. Terrain = flat. We could see for miles and miles and miles and ...... The sky was a gorgeous blue and very clear. On our way to Prince Albert mom and I saw a small black flying object that was neither a plane or a bird. Was it a flying saucer? An alien spaceship? We'll never know. We saw tons of blue and yellow fields. We speculated that they were flax and canola fields. There were lots of marshy areas and tons of hawks .... big and beautiful hawks. We saw a moose near Cudworth (a town which has been in the news lately, google it) which was very cool. That made the trip for my mom. We arrived in Prince Albert at 2pm. We ate at a local restaurant - Ricky's All Day Grill - for dinner and did some shopping at Walmart for some essentials. I have no idea where we found room for our shopping bags, the car was already packed so tight.

DAY 5: Prince Albert, Saskatchewan - Final Destination - La Loche

Lots and lots and lots of trees. Many forest areas have been burned. There weren't many places to stop on this last leg. Again too many bugs. I have never seen dragon flys so big and of course they all flew into my car. We arrived in La Loche at 3:30pm and immediately went to the village office to sign up for cable and to use their phone. I called Anita (assistant principal for the elementary school) to meet her to get my keys. I met Anita at the elementary school and while I was in the building a bird pooped on my mom. For those of you who know my mom you will see the humour in this. :) Finally we arrived at my house. First reaction: very happy.

So, here I am. I've traveled through four states and two provinces and now I am home. I'm sitting in MY house on MY sofa and getting ready to start MY career.