Good bye Ontario, Hello Manitoba

We made it to Manitoba!  How exciting to finally enter a new province!  

David under his street

For the remainder of yesterday afternoon we toured  Dryden, which was a lovely little town.  We discovered a street named David Ave and David more than willing to pose for a picture.  Natalie was very impressed with the library - there were lots of comfy chairs for people to curl up and read some books.  She found some of her favorite series and read for about an hour.   Andrea loved the playground we found nearby and showed us her new trick on the monkey bars.  Francois and I enjoyed the quiet time.  It was a very stressful drive for me from Thunder Bay until we made it to Dryden.  Francois, of course, was very positive.  He was very matter of fact about our situation and we aimed for small goals - like making it to the next community because after Thunder Bay there is large stretches of area with no communities and sometimes no cellular phone connections.  

All in all we had a great day and left Dryden shortly after 5:00pm.  We were told the nest in our van consisted of a lot of maple seeds, so just a warning to our neighbors, the squirrel may have made the nest before we left PEI.

As we left Dryden we saw a silver fox crossing the road and the most interesting thing we have seen to date to cross the road was a turtle - it was very large and was almost across the road by the time we came upon it.  

We stopped in Kenora to give the kids a quick bite to eat.  The time difference changed just before Dryden, so now we were on Central Time, but the kids stomachs were telling them it was time to eat.  Sandwiches have been the food of choice lately, but the kids haven’t complained.  David seems to be the one who needs the most food, he must be going through a growth spurt.

We arrived in Manitoba around 7:45pm - the tourist information centre was closed and there was no one working the desk at the provincial campground at Falcon Lake Shore Campground in Whiteshell Provincial park.    There were no black flies at the campground, so everyone helped put up the tent, which makes it much faster.  

There were lots of different bird sounds in the campground and the ravens were very loud at 5:00 am this morning.  The kids managed to sleep through the noise, but after one hour of listening to the birds squawk Francois headed to the showers.  On the way back he saw a deer within 15 feet of him.  They played the staring game and then the deer moved on.

We had breakfast and then took the tent down.  Again no black flies and minimal mosquitos too.  We were on the highway around 8:30 am making our way into Winnipeg.  We saw two deer near the highway - we are still excited to see these animals - they look so elegant.

I asked the kids if they are missing home and they said, “No, why would I miss it?”  So week two has begun and we are doing well.  We are listening a lot to Judy Blume’s audio book - The Pain and the Great one.  David loves it, I am sure we will know it word for word by the end of the trip!

Although we are not missing home we are missing our family and friends.  Yesterday Andrea said, “When Grammy sees us in August I bet she will say how big we have grown.”  I think she will say that too!

We hope everyone is doing well - thanks for reading our blog and for your comments and e-mails, we read it all and truly appreciate it.