[Bumper]

Trip Report - Saskatchewan

Okay, I admit to being a compulsive trip report poster. As a matter of fact, it’s all I can do to keep from sitting down at the computer keyboard after I’ve taken out the trash. (Who could doubt me after “The Bumpers are coming” trip report from Hell?) As far as I’m concerned, trip reports are fun!!

Anyway, Mrs. Bumper and I made a pilgrimage for a few days last week to Davidson, a small town in rural Saskatchewan, with a stopover in the provincial capitol of Regina. For the uninitiated, and geographically challenged, Saskatchewan is the next Canadian province to the West of our home in Manitoba. Why this trip, you question? And well you might ask! After all, the Canadian prairies are not generally considered a “hot” tourist destination. London, Rome, Paris, Regina(?), Davidson(?) etc. Saskatchewan has a well-earned reputation for being....let’s be charitable and say “featureless”. (Not that our home province of Manitoba is a lot more exciting, topographically speaking.) Saskatchewan makes places like Kansas and North Dakota look positively inspiring. According to Webster: Flat - a. horizontal; level; spread out; lying at full length; absolute; dull; monotonous; dejected; having lost its effervescence or its power to generate electrical current; below the correct pitch in music (See Saskatchewan) Tedious - a. tiresome because of length, slowness, or dullness. (See Saskatchewan) This journey was an obligatory family get together to mark my cousin’s 50th birthday. It featured a gathering of a diverse group of my certifiably demented cousins who are all refugees from various mental-health institutions. An international assortment of lunatics from Kalispell-Montana, Milwaukee- Wisconsin, Edmonton, Calgary & Didsbury-Alberta, Minneapolis-Minnesota, ourselves from Winnipeg, and a collection of locals. A varied and interesting band of wingnuts and whackos. I sometimes wonder how I managed to turn out to be so normal and level-headed?

Travel: In a trip report on Playa, we would discuss Northwest Airlines and the Airbus 320, and getting around on the ground by taxi. In getting to the outback of Saskatchewan, we employed the Bumpermobile, a 2001 Toyota Sienna. Just get on the Trans-Canada highway - the only real road in Western Canada. Point it west, turn on the cruise control, and take a nap. 350 miles later, turn right at “the” tree (all the beavers starved to death) and you’re in Regina, a city which is best seen in a rear-view mirror. The only Canadian provincial capitol where they still pasture cows on the grassy boulevards of the main street Next day, out of Regina and on to the thriving metropolitan centre of Davidson. A wide place in the road that’s so small they share their drunk with the next town, the “now entering” and “now leaving” signs are on the same post, the street lights dim when you plug in your electric razor, the traffic jams are caused by being stuck behind a combine, third street is in the next town, you don’t bother signaling turns because everybody knows where you’re going, you call a wrong number and they give you the right one, the McDonalds has one golden arch, the 7-11 is a 3 ½-5 ½, the phone book has one yellow page, there’s no place to go that you shouldn’t, the New Years baby is born in April, and a “night on the town” takes 7 minutes . In rural Saskatchewan, you get around in the same vehicle as got you there. A “cab” is an after-market item you put on a tractor or a combine. (By the way, one of the cousins we were visiting took delivery of a new tractor last week. The smallest 4-wheel drive model produced by Case International. Pretty basic, no bells and whistles - price tag $230,000.00...YIKES!!) We noticed that in most parking lots, our Toyota mini-van was the only vehicle that wasn’t a half-ton Cowboy Cadillac. This being Canada, these had no gun racks full of assault weapons, but they did have the mandatory tool box made of aluminum tread plate and full of empty motor oil cans and plastic fertilizer jugs.

Accommodations: Not the Gran Porto Real. Not the Las Palmas condominiums, not the Playa Maya, or even La Tortuga. In Regina, that Paris of the prairies, a Super 8, with the traditional lumpy institutional mattress, and a sumptuous, gourmet continental breakfast. I suspect the “continent” was Antarctica, because the blueberry muffins had definitely been previously frozen. In Davidson, we stayed in the palatial Jubilee Motor Inn. The rooms were so small, the mice were hunch-backed; the Gideon bible is in pocket book format; when I called down and asked to have a towel sent up, they said we’d have to wait because someone else was using it; and they are single-handedly keeping the 25 watt bulb industry in business.

Dining: We searched all over Saskatchewan in vain for a Yaxche, Apashionado, or even a Babes. In Regina, we ended up at Montanas, a “roadhouse” type restaurant at which I tried for quacamole, chips & salsa, pescado entero, and Dos Equis. Settled for buffalo wings, beef ribs and Rickard’s Red. A tasty and satisfying alternative, but not quite the same thing. The rest of the trip was spent with family, who - being basically farm folk - are all into “eating light”. That means as soon as it gets light...they start eating, and they only stop long enough to wash the dishes from time to time. Turkey, ham, Ukrainian garlic sausage (gotta eat that in self defense), potato salad, deviled eggs, coleslaw, pickles, a variety of dips, raw veggies, jellied salads, and those homemade delicacies; moose sausage, elk sausage, and smoked lake trout. All followed up with an assortment of pies, cakes, and cookies. Good thing I packed my baggy sweats and industrial-strength belt.

Wildlife: No monkeys, no sea turtles, no parrots, no iguanas, no moray eels, no geckos, and no okapis. We did see an interesting variety of livestock. I now know a lot about various breeds of cattle. There’s red cows, red and white cows, brown cows, brown and white cows, black cows, black and white cows, dirty white cows, and beige cows. I realize that’s pretty detailed, technical, and comprehensive information, but do the best you can to follow along. Truth be known, there’s really only two kinds of cows: those that provide milk, and those that are lunch. Any more data than that is superfluous. Frankly, most of the wildlife we encountered was sighted on or near the highway. Recognizable species spotted were roadkill examples of antelope, porcupine, raccoon, gopher, cat, dog, an assortment of birds - wild and domesticated - and a great number of anonymous, gory piles of fur and feathers.

Activities: During the trip, we took a short detour to visit with friends in Moose Jaw. No kidding...a name like that you couldn’t make up. We’ve got lots of them in Western Canada: Medicine Hat, Cereal, Dog Pound, Moose Factory, Head Bashed In Buffalo Jump, Salmon Arm Flin Flon, etc. Sorta’ makes you wonder if thinking up place names was a popular pastime for the early settlers sitting around the camp fire in the evening after a day of looking at the back side of a couple of oxen all day and breathing in all that prairie dust.

We attended a fund-raiser barbeque put on by the equivalent of Playa’s “Bomberos” - the local volunteer fire department, whose proud claim to fame is that they’ve never lost a basement yet. Witnessing the volume of smoke being generated by the four barbeques they had in service, we were reassured by the fire fighting equipment in evidence around the station. The day’s entertainment consisted of setting off salvaged automotive air bags in the parking lot. Trust me, these “safety devices” pack a Hell of a wallop. Getting T-boned on the interstate would likely do you less damage than having an air bag go off in your kisser.

Mostly, we sat around and listened enthralled to the local yokels discussing subjects of rural interest. The low price of grain, the high price of agricultural chemicals, summerfallow practices, the NHL playoffs, mad cow disease, grass hoppers, $325,000 combines, golf cart trailers, farm auctions, fishing, tire sales, and the hot topic of the day - the fact that Saskatchewan now has province-wide emergency telephone service. (The most common question seemed to be, “What number do you call for 9-1-1?)

The trip home, after the several days of socializing, eating too much, and drinking, was uneventful. Mind you, “uneventful” is a charitable description for most journeys involving automobile travel across Manitoba and Saskatchewan. Our cats forgave our temporary absence and we’ve already started preparations for our next expedition, which takes place in about three weeks. It will be a 2 ½ week excursion to Victoria, on Vancouver Island, in British Columbia. If you’re lucky, we’ll restrain ourselves and not regale you with tales of that particular outing.