Got a late start! The hot spring pool opened at 7am, but I wasn’t there until about 8:30. I made some mediocre coffee in the hotel room and wandered down there to greet the day.
travel
arrived at Moose Jaw
I had to help a student (unscheduled, without pay, I might add!), create homework for another, post tutoring session records online, and pay bills (online) before I could leave. I finally left Lethbridge about 12:30pm.
Moose Jaw seems like a nice place. It’s a small city of just under 34,000 (4th largest in SK). After putting my bags in the hotel, I wandered the streets looking for a) some food and b) a beer.
Here are some pics.
5/10/2024 8:22 PM 823430 AB, SK 20240508_191434 streets and buildings, Moose Jaw, SK.jpg 5/10/2024 8:23 PM 692768 AB, SK 20240508_192112 streets and buildings, Moose Jaw, SK.jpg 5/10/2024 8:23 PM 1002959 AB, SK 20240508_192114 liquor store, Moose Jaw, SK.jpg 5/10/2024 8:23 PM 776188 AB, SK 20240508_192122 streets and buildings, Moose Jaw, SK.jpg 5/8/2024 7:21 PM 4496314 AB, SK 20240508_192153 Victory Church (no perfect people), Moose Jaw, SK.jpg 5/10/2024 8:24 PM 1642716 AB, SK 20240508_192406 streets and buildings, Moose Jaw, SK.jpg 5/8/2024 7:26 PM 3357405 AB, SK 20240508_192656 Temple Garden Hotel & Spa.jpg 5/8/2024 7:30 PM 2911284 AB, SK 20240508_193046 Pile O' Bones Space Cadet IPA.jpg
I went to the hot spring pool area sometime after 8pm with a few hours to spare (closed at 11pm). I wish I had my camera then. The sky was cloudy, and the weather cool (maybe 10°C), but it had stopped raining. There were mostly seniors and Natives there. The water and scenery was really nice. A woman there was reading a book. I decided to go get mine in my room, providing a cool-down break from the hot water.
drivin’ back to Sask (not Saskatoon)
I’m on my way back to Saskatchewan again. This trip, I’ll stay at a hot springs hotel & spa called Temple Garden in … you’ll never guess … Moose Jaw, SK! Sound fun? Dang rights! Floyd suggested that, when I go back again to pick him up after seeing his family members and visiting with his sister, I should stop off for one night at Temple Garden. It’s a hot spring of some kind. So that’s where I’m headed.
On the way there, when the rain storm clouds began to dissipate, I could see an eerie orange building on the horizon, way out there. As I drew closer,
…it turned out to be a large elevator, not alien construction of a space / time portal hidden in plain sight, as one would naturally presumed. (Unless aliens are running the wheat industry now…) It in fact is just painted, presumably, their corporate colours.
I also found a nice house to buy, central to everything, near a restaurant (at which I have eaten once several years ago).
A fixer-upper. I’m good at that.
They also have a casino – the hotel, not the wooden house above – but I likely won’t darken their doors. Not my thing. I prefer expected, predicable value for my money.
More when I get there.
(BTW – for those of you not from Western Canada, Runnin’ Back to Saskatoon by The Guess Who)
AB, SK 2024
We left May 2, 2024, and I got back yesterday, May 3.
I delivered Floyd to his sister’s in Alameda, SK, for a wedding. Floyd drove half-way, and I drove the rest. Problem is, we left shortly after 9am and, thanks to me searching for a Shell station to get a discount, Google maps, and Saskatchewan highway planners, we ended up going off-course a considerable amount.
Veronica & Jane
I just met a woman from Ireland named Veronica. She was standing in the town square in Basingstoke, UK near a statue of Jane Austen. How’s that?
I video called my sister via WhatsApp. When she answers, she was talking to a friend of hers on the street and introduced me. I showed Veronica the snowy landscape in Lethbridge, just outside my windows. It just so happened that we’ve had about a foot (30cm) of snow. She was quite amazed. Aizlynn showed the town square, a quaint, picturesque place. There is a statue of the writer, Jane Austen, nearby. We read some plaques on the ground showing bits of into.
Aizlynn & Caleb were on their way out to supper, so off they went.
10 years
This afternoon marks 10 years being back in Canada.