Day 8 - Sunday, June 8 - Welcome to Saskatchewan

Woke up this morning and the sun was out! Yeah I hope it will be a nice day for driving today.  We are leaving Halkirk this morning and heading east.  As we drive further east I wonder if Alberta should drop the Sunny idea and go with Alberta - Big Sky Country because I can see for miles and miles and the horizon never gets closer.  It is beautiful looking out into the distance with the blue sky and fluffy white clouds.  It looks a bit stormy ahead of us, I hope not we have seen enough rain to last us awhile.

We stopped at Consort for fuel and propane and we plan to top up at Provost before we leave Alberta.  Fuel prices here have been anywhere from $1.19 to $1.25 so that's not bad.  

We have only been on the road for 8 days but it seems much, much longer.  We have done so much in such a short time.  

Finally we arrive in Saskatchewan at 12:05 pm!  We arrived at Maklin and stopped at the Coop for some groceries.  Maklin is famous for its big bone called a Bunnock.  Bunnock is Russian for bone - the Russians played a game with horse bones as a past time as a they could not play any other games  in the frozen tundra.  

As we drove farther east we came upon a town called Unity - this is one of the towns that is famous for Sifto Salt - they have a big salt plant there as well as a Bioenergy Plant.  

Every town has a slogan it seems.  We decided to stop a Biggar for coffee and to visit the museum.  

As I said every town has a slogan.  Biggar has a population of 1600 - but I am sure it has more land mass than New York.  June is not a good month for visitng museums or special stops of interest as most things are not open for tourist season yet.  But the coffee stop was interesting - one of the coffee club fellows refilled our cups for us as we were able to watch the Spruce Meadows jumping on their TV. 

Lots of lakes along the way here in SK and many signs indicating to "Watch for Moose" - we haven't seen any - but there must be some somewhere.

As we enter Saskatoon we note that there are lots of trees and lush green grass everywhere - Dan says that is because it rains so much.  Very pretty city.  This one is for you Kathy - we passed by Boychuk Drive!  Thought you might like that one.

We are looking for a campsite and the only one I can find is in Allan about 12 km off 16.  There is a big PCS Potash plant / mine there.  It is a big operation.  Down the road we continue looking for the campsite - no signage as we enter Allan so we continue to drive - boy the roads here are bad- red dirt that is washed out and full of Potholes.  Finally we stop to ask a resident where the campsite might be - he is not sure but thinks it is just up there and around the corner.  So off we go and sure enough it is there, so we find a site and while Dan hooks up I look for an office to pay.  I walk around the block and cannot find anyone to talk to.  Finally a man comes out of his trailer and I ask him where the office is.  It seems no one here's really concerned about paying, so off to the office I go and the manager lets us stay for nothing.  It seems they usually only get long term people - I guess no one drives off the highway for one night and as the signage is lacking, I don't think it could be found too easily anyway.  Vey nice people, full hookup, showers and internet.  Lovely quite grassy spot with lots of birds serenading us!  A jewel off the highway.  

Time for bed - it's been an interesting day.