On the ICE ROAD crossing the Mackenzie River
We are safely in Winnipeg, visiting with my Mom. The drive down was not uneventful. The first day we left Yellowknife early in the morning and headed to Peace River, AB. The roads were good until about 2 hours outside of High Level and it started to snow. There was about 10 cm accumulating on the roads and I was driving and had to slow to about 80 km/hr. That was painful to a speed demon like myself, but every once in awhile I could feel the car start to slide and I knew it would be really dangerous to speed up. We changed drivers in High Level and it was crazy as soon as we left town the roads were dry, not a bit of snow, it was great driving the rest of the way to Peace River.
The next day we had a lovely drive to Cold Lake AB, close to the AB/SK border about 100 kms north of Lloydminster. We had a great visit with friends we had met sailing on Great Slave Lake when they had towed their boat up to Yellowknife to compete in the Commissioner's Cup. The next day we once again left before dawn. I was a bit worried about driving in that country in the dark. Barry was tooling along and a couple of deer leaped out in front of the car. We clipped the hind end of one of them at 100 km/hr. Fortunately, we only caught the end of it and all that was damaged was our front signal light. The headlight was fine but the right signal light did not work any more. We saw quite a few more deer but they were smart enough to stay away from the road while we were speeding by. We arrived in Wpg. about 9:00 P.M. and were very happy to be here without any more incidents. Barry is off at the moment at the auto wreckers trying to buy a new signal light.
Barry had suggested before we left Yellowknife that we would be driving by Swift Current SK, while the World Women's Curling Championships was on so we should see if we could get tickets. I went online and sure enough there were some tickets left, we are going to see the 1 - 2 page playoff game on Friday night. I guess I should figure out how far it is from Wpg. so we will know when we have to leave on Friday morning.
Mom had a big dinner planned tonight, my uncle and his new wife will be here as well as Bill, my Mom's friend. All I have to do while I am here is buy a team Canada hockey jersey so my buddy in San Franscico can wear it around the airport, to pay off a bet we made about the results of the Olympic hockey game.