Travel with Art

The 6 hour drive from Edmonton to Saskatoon was tiring (after flying overnight from Alaska). But I arrived around 4:00pm and went for a walk to get back on schedule. An early evening and I was on the road again early the next day. Arrived at 6:00pm at the home of Kerry & Donna in a hot sunny Winnipeg. They both have booked off from their part-time jobs so we can hang together for most of the time I am here. First up was off for drinks in the outdoor exchange area and on to visit the  Assiniboine Park Zoo    A space occupying 1/3rd of the zoo is currently under construction and not due to open for another year so we made do with the other 2/3rds. It is an OK zoo but nothing special (although the promise of the new Journey to Churchill exhibit might make it a lot more interesting next year). 3 penguins occupied a huge building of their own which was mostly a shopping opportunity - a bit sad!  And I truly hope they get a mate of companion for their lone polar bea...

To get there was a bit of a flight experience. There were no flights direct from Edmonton to Anchorage and the cheapest indirect had me flying half way across the continent in the other direction to Minneapolis to head west again and each Anchorage. That meant an inflight time of 9 hours instead of only 2.5 if I could have flown direct.  But that meant that I was actually able to meet up with Mom in Minneapolis to fly the next segment with her (and on to return we both left Alaska on the same flight before heading out separate ways in Minneapolis). We landed just after midnight but the Budget Car Rental was still open and the sky was quite bright so we picked up our Jeep SUV and I drove the 45 minutes to Uncle Ed's property in Wasilla. We were a bit shocked with the dirty condition that we found his trailer in but headed to bed as soon as we could make them up with fresh sheets. The next day began our intensive cleanout of the trailer and the yard. I was truly amazed and...