20050803  Regina SK  54/80  Clear, windy (NW).       

We got up late due to a mixup in time zones. If I now have it correct, Alaska is on their own time zone of one hour later than Pacific; Yukon and BC use Pacific Daylight Savings Time; Alberta uses Mountain Daylight Savings Time; Saskatchewan uses Central Time but does not use Daylight Savings Time, so their time is the same year-round.

Then we got going down TransCanada 16 east to Saskatoon. It's a four-lane divided highway with a wide median; the road is bumpy in places but usually has a speed limit of 110kph (nearly 70mph). We veered off it onto SK-11 to go to Regina, which led us through downtown Saskatoon, a trip I won't do again - narrow lanes and overhanging trees with bumpy streets. It has an interesting architecture or architectures. We found out later the population is around 200,000.

SK-11 is likewise a four-lane divided highway. Neither of these two roads goes through the little towns along the old highway - they all (almost) have bypasses around them. Like many little places, those you can see from the bypass appear to have had many better days.

We arrived at Regina (also about 200,000 population) and finally found the King's Acres campground, despite their attempt to hide the driveway. It's off a service road that you can only access from TransCanada-1 going westbound and is adjacent to an on-ramp going onto TC-1 westbound. From the eastbound lanes, you pass the campground, turn left, cross the westbound lanes, pass the information center entry, pass the westbound on-ramp, and turn into the westbound service road. 

We asked for restaurant recommendations and got them. Dolores did some laundry while I got the e-mail. After she put her laundry away, we went downtown to Golf's restaurant at the corner of Victoria and Hamilton.
Golf's an old-fashioned, dark wood, large chairs, type of beef house. Richard was the server; he did the Yukon last year, so we chatted off and on all through the meal. Cocktails, soup, salad, entree, bottle of Pinot Grigio, all very nice.

Then we hiked into and out of the square downtown, and around several city blocks. It's a fairly nice downtown dominated by financial institution buildings and, since this is the provincial capital, government establishments.

Back, then, to the campground by way of Safeway for bananas and ice cream. We put that away and settled in to take it easy. The campground is adjacent to the big transmitter antenna for CTV; we get CTV on about eight channels and it interferes with most of the others.

Now we're doing these notes and planning a day here in Regina tomorrow.

20050804  Regina SK  53/87  Clear, warm.

We got up early but didn't do much until I made contact with a coin dealer. A while back, I'd come into some coins collected by my step-father. I'd sold off all but the Canadian coins some time back. We brought them along this trip.

We met him at his little office. He started looking through the piles of coins, telling us something of the peculiar things that make some Canadian coins worth more than face value. He found two 1953 nickels that were mis-struck and worth (to us) CDN$50 each, and gave us a little over face value on some other stuff for a total of over CDN$200. He made money on us of course, but we felt well-treated for the position we were in.

We took his cheque and some already-rolled coins to his bank and cashed them all in. Then we went down the street and had a nice lunch in a restaurant off the shopping mall street and mentally thanked Bill for collecting the coins.

We took a ride 40 miles west to Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. We stopped in the historic district downtown and went up and down the main street looking in stores. We bought some books and maps. While Dolores looked through a craft mall, I went to the historic Canadian Pacific train station at the foot of Main Street. It's now in use as a government liquor store (huge), but you can see the old waiting room and its tall ceiling.

Then we went to the visitors center (doing things backward again). Dolores picked up a pin and a great tee-shirt that says on the front "Saskatchewan - hard to spell" and on the back "But easy to draw" (with a big rectangle).

We came back to the little house to drop off some things, then went out again to a couple of stores (bought nothing) and then to dinner in a noisy Italian place. The food was good though.

We stopped to buy some ice cream for Dolores and top off the fuel in the truck. Then back to settle in.

Tomorrow, we're off to Wasagaming, Manitoba, to stay in Riding Mountain Nat'l Park for a couple of nights.

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