July 23rd to 26th - Alberta & Saskatchewan

July 23rd – Fri – Sherwood Park
We went for a drive looking for an RV salvage yard that we used a couple of years ago when we had a problem with our 5th wheel. Cliff needs windshield wipers for his motor home and no one carries them here so we thought the salvage yard might have some. Unfortunately, our memories weren’t as good as we thought and we didn’t find the place.
We had lunch at Quizno’s and then came back to the house. C&P’s neighbor Francois (who dropped in for a while last night) has 160 acres of mostly treed land and has cut trails – actually narrow roads – through the trees. So we all walked the trails to Francois’ house, expecting him to be at work but just wanting the exercise. We were turning around to go back when Francois came out of the house and called us back. We went in and chatted with him a bit and then walked back.
I helped Cliff set up a spreadsheet for expenses on his computer and then showed him how to scan photos into his computer. Terry & Pauline played pinball while Cliff & I worked!
Cliff’s cousin Doreen & her husband Bob (who we met in Desert Hot Springs) came over for dinner. We were flattered that they drove an hour each way just to see us for a few hours! C&P made a typical Mennonite dinner of sausage (made & smoked by Cliff), noodles and gravy made from the sausage drippings – YUM. Bob & Doreen left about 10 and we had to get out the Sequence game again and reinforce the female dominance in this group.

July 24th – Sat – Sherwood Park
I made breakfast sandwiches for all of us this morning which we enjoyed out on C&P’s huge screened porch. Then we went downtown to an indoor farmers’ market where we bought a few items. We couldn’t decide if we wanted lunch so we ended up with smoothies and headed to a mall to buy coffee beans for Cliff. Then we spent a couple of hours at the Edmonton Casino where only Terry was not a loser. We made a quick stop at Costco before heading back just in time for snacks (since we didn’t eat lunch) and happy hour. Cliff & Terry spent time setting up a satellite TV receiver while Pauline & I worked on dinner. We did a shared dinner tonight where we contributed our usual baby back ribs and great fresh lettuce that Les sent with us.
C& P taught us a new card game – Wizard. We really enjoyed it and will be adding it to our game assortment. As if it was not late enough, we all put on our swim suits and boiled in the hot tub that is also in the screened porch so there are no pesky bugs around. It was 1 o’clock when we headed to our rig. We have not been up so late for more than one night in a long time!

July 25th – Sun – to North Battleford, Saskatchewan
We got everything ready to leave and went to C&P’s for coffee. Pauline had other ideas and they made bacon, eggs & pancakes for breakfast. I love this restaurant!!
We left about 10 and headed east on Hwy 16 (Yellowknife Hwy). When the highway passed through Elk Island National Park, we saw several large, healthy-looking buffalo near the road. We stopped at an information center in Lloydminster and then carried on to North Battleford where we needed to get fuel.
It was 2:40 by the time we fueled up so we decided to see if David Laird Campground had a spot for us – and it did. We dumped our waste tanks and set up.
When we got diesel, we got a credit at a grocery store so we went back there and picked u a few items. Unfortunately, it was right next to a casino so we had to go there too. In my usual recent fashion, I lost a small allowance and shortly afterwards Terry was done also. But we decided to spend a little more and Terry ended up winning enough to cover our losses. We got back to the park about 8:30, Terry cleaned the bugs off the front of the 5th wheel and I made a light dinner.
July 26th – Mon – to Watrous Sask
A thunderstorm blew in with huge amounts of rain last night but we only had a few very light showers when we started driving. We were going to head through Saskatoon and directly to Watrous until I mentioned that at the casino last night I found out that I could win money in my birthday month but my card had to be active for a day to do so. We knew there was a nice casino just south of Saskatoon so we made a slight detour. It turned out that Monday was seniors’ day – even better!
This time it was Terry’s turn to lose and my turn to win. I was ahead when we stopped for lunch and Terry discovered that our cards were now activated so we each got $15 free play – and I got nothing for my “birthday” card scan. It took quite a while to lose our free play money and I lost some of my winnings before we headed out about 4.
Terry didn’t want to drive back to Saskatoon (part of which is rough & narrow & some is in town) and then to Watrous so we took a little longer route south & then east. Mistake! We remembered too late that we drove part of this route a couple of years ago and the rough sections are even worse now. We arrived at Manitou Regional Campground just out of Watrous around 6. First we were assigned a short, wide site way in the back so Terry asked if we could have a drive through that he spotted right near the front. When we were here previously we tried one of the sites in the back and it was so wet that we left big ruts and got a new site.
The park has fast wifi service that we are getting at our site so it is nice to be connected again. The weather was hot all day but it cooled off quickly and sent us inside for the evening.