Minnesota and Winnipeg 2024_08

  Monday September 2nd   Today was another travel day.   We gathered up our things, then checked out the breakfast bar before leaving. We’ve actually been using one of the hotel luggage carts and filling it with suitcases, cooler, and the purple tote with all our emergency lunch and breakfast supplies. We get some interesting looks but hey, we come prepared! Wow, were there ever a lot of people in the breakfast room!! We were guessing that most of them were on their way home for school or work tomorrow.   But it truly looked like a United Nations with several countries represented. As we rolled our over-loaded cart out to the car, we noticed licence plates from several provinces and states.   No crazy curving roads or steep hills today. We think because it’s the last day of a long weekend, the roads were much busier than they have been for most of our trip. (other than maybe our trip “around” the outskirts of Chicago where traffic is never quiet).   We were...

  Sunday September 1st Are we ready for September?? Not, but here it is anyway…. The weather matches the month today, chilly (14 C), so I guess not swimming weather, lol! Since the Valhalla did not have a free breakfast this morning, and we checked the in-house restaurant yesterday to discover that that breakfast is $20/person plus drinks, tax, and tip.   That was a definite “no.”   Happily we had our emergency breakfast kit (toaster and egg cooker), and Karl managed to convince the restaurant to at least give us some hot water.   So add to that the mysterious campfire sausage that we think is smoked (doesn’t say so on the package) and we had a really good breakfast in our room.   We still have fruit and banana bread from Diana so we are not starving.   We looked around the room before we left.   The Valhalla is a 3.5 star hotel with a conference centre. The front lobby and restaurant look like something out of Norway.   But our room had pen/penci...

  Saturday August 31st Today was definitely a traveling day for seniors. Nothing like the Roadtrek days when Karl was up at 5 am and hauled me out of bed at 6 am to “get on the road”, lol!! So we had a leisurely picnic breakfast in our room, finally using the toaster and egg cooker that was part of my scathingly brilliant idea to save money on restaurants.   It actually turned out great.   Our room was cozy with a table and chairs and a kettle that the girl in the office kindly gave us to make tea.   I have to say that the scenery was beautiful with lots of small lakes and gorgeous views everywhere.   We only drove about 6 hours today, from Kenora toThunder Bay, but there were long stretches between towns.   I even saw signs that warned you to check your fuel (before passing a gas station) because the upcoming area is not well serviced.   A lot of the names in Kenora and in fact most of the small towns were definitely indigenous.   Not a lot of ex...

Friday August 30 This morning Chad, Charlie and Diana's oldest son who is a professional basketball player, came to visit, and Diana made a wonderful big breakfast complete with eggs, bacon, fried potatoes, and fruit. Chad is the typical son. He came into the house, hugged the dog, opened and leaned into the refrigerator to see what was there, lol! Seriously he did hug his parents first. Sounds like his schedule is not quite so busy now.   He played the summer season with the Winnipeg Sea Bears and they just finished.(professional basketball team). But he was interested in what we were doing and how our holiday was going too, which was really sweet.   Funny to see Diana’s little dog jump up into Chad’s arms for a cuddle! (Chad is very tall, 6’11”, I think) Diana loaded us up with sandwiches, fruit, and a g-f banana loaf for our trip home, and we set off for Beausejour to see Margaret and Phil.   Their house is about the size of ours.   It’s cosy and totally reminds m...

  Thursday August 29th Today started off rainy.  Apparently there was a thunderstorm last night that kept little Hadley (a 12 yr. Old Bishon/Poodle cross) trembling for a good part of the night.  We heard nothing in our beautiful basement retreat!! And…. I slept in “again”!!  We were to meet cousin Margaret and Darwin Knutson, and Trudy, for breakfast at 9:30 am. Issue was that our car wouldn’t start yesterday - Karl and Charlie decided it was a dead battery. So pending an answer to that issue, Diana offered to lend us one of their cars.   We arrived at Lee’s Restaurant (a legion) at exactly 9:30 thanks to handwritten instructions from Diana we carefully followed.  (Even a GPS can mess up). The parking lot was really crowded - we were worried that we might have to wait, but the hall was huge.   Breakfast came loaded with luscious food - truly better than any breakfast special I’ve had anywhere before!!  We chatted with Darwin, Margaret, an...

Wednesday August 28th We slept in a bit today - perhaps the pace of the past few days has caught up with us! The morning was spent relaxing and chatting with Diana and Charlie.   Their home is so comfortable and they have truly made us feel welcome.   Charlie showed me around the yard.   They have a large lot with a deck and an above-ground pool, and also vegetable gardens, apple trees, and large grassy areas. Jessy (their youngest son) works in aircraft maintenance so he’s very mechanical.   You should see the ’67 Mustang he restored - he obviously has talent!! I really think that Jessy gets his talent from Charlie because I also saw a '58 Meteor in the driveway, and a couple more cars in the garage that he and Jessy are working on!! So Diana had contacted several of our Manitoba cousins and invited them to her house for 2 pm. this afternoon.   We could never have been able to get around to visit so many in the few days we are in Manitoba.   It was an incr...