August 6th to 8th:- Grenfell, Saskatchewan… A railroad ran through it..!!

You can tell when you cross from Manitoba in to Saskatchewan because all of a sudden the road surface has been replaced sometime this century… A bit like driving out of a torrential rainstorm to suddenly completely dry roads……..did I mention…the roads in Manitoba are…..awful…….!!!

Oh Grenfell.. What a marvelous little town. Population posted at 1099….

Makes Wawa seem like a thriving metropolis……and also no internet…and no wifi anywhere in town…

The campground is close to the railroad… Actually… Everything in town…. Is close to the railroad…..it wasn’t noisy cos they don’t move very fast….and they are very very long….

The local museum has scale models of grain elevators outside it. And the largest building in town is the grain elevator… By the railroad..

We had booked the site online….and when we got there…..we were told by a random guy who was there with his dog….that because it is a municipal campground….you have to go downtown to the town office to pay…….( I forgot to take a picture before we left….but there is an honesty box on the wall by the showers for after hours check in and payment………!!!! this is such a charming little town…..)

So to the town office…….a block and a half from the campground….cos its not a big town…!!!

Now just over 2,600kms from home…the truck is in need of an oil change….and being in town for a couple of days…we think it might be possible to swing a spot at a local auto shop……”oh yes “says the girl in the town office….”you could try Slumps next door”…..(everything is next door in Grenfell..!!)

So….off we trot…..to this…..

Slumps…!!!..inside were about eight guys sitting round a coffee table….drinking coffee……….the response….no…they were way too busy to do an oil change……!!!

New experience…in Saskatchewan or in Grenfell anyway…the hardware store also sells liquor wine and beer…..!!!

Sunday morning I walked down to the laundromat……both it…and the town were deserted…..!!..But the laundromat was …an experience…..

It was like a 50’s film set…….those dryers were phenomenal,,,,,50 cents for about a half hour…….can’t go wrong with that…!!!!

While I was away doing laundry….back at camp the truck and trailer were having Manitoba removed……both were thick in dust and mud……

All clean and sparkly again……..

Back on the road to Swift Current……

Now…the big learning module for Saskatchewan….other than the fact that it is not flat……its a bit more like the Yorkshire Dales…..only…if someone copied and pasted the dales at least a dozen times….thats more like Saskatchewan…..and the road feels like its all uphill….!!!!or at least our fuel consumption indicated that it was….

Anyway…as you cross the middle……you Canadians probably already knew this…but it was fascinating to us…Chaplin…about halfway across sits on Lake Chaplin…which is the second largest salt water lake in Canada…….all the little lakes and pools are white around the edge from the water evaporating off and leaving the salt…(sodium sulphate) which is then used to make things like laundry detergent.

It is also a habitat for tens of thousands of shore birds……which is an extraordinary sight right in the middle of this enormous land mass.

Swift Current….again…not a big town….but such a very friendly place…….best curry house we have found on this side of the Atlantic…..

They took my favourite curry…dahl mahkani…and added butter fried paneer to it…..heavenly…..

Arrived at the campground to this……..!!!!

Luckily for us…our name was on the door….!!!

We had much better luck with the oil change……two minutes from the campground….when Scott came back I thought he’d forgotten something…….but that was how fast they got the job done…….no slumping here….!!!!

Two day stop then on to Alberta……!!!