Back from Vacation

We arrived back from our vacation in Northern Saskatchewan yesterday afternoon after 7.5 hours in the truck traveling from Grandma and Grandpa Demmans' farm in Meadow Lake.

The trip up went exceedingly smooth, Chance went to sleep right away in his car seat and we clocked 285 km he woke up. We drove a bit further while he played with his toys and then stopped in the park in Viking, Alberta, which is right next to the railway tracks and Chance got to see his first freight train up close and personal! He just stared at the train cars rushing by and hung on tight while I held him.

After all the crawling around in the park and a big lunch, Chance soon went back to sleep and we drove another 280 km before stopping at the North Saskatchewan river.

The last leg of the trip was a bit harder, everyone was tired of being in the truck but we arrived around 4 PM and soon we all happier with Grandma and Grandpa. Chance was so happy crawling around on their big lawn.

We stayed at the farm on Saturday night too and were off for Missinipe on Sunday. We left early in the morning and took a gravel road to La Ronge, where we stopped for a short visit with Cam's grandma and Auntie Juanita and cousin Tanika. Chance and Dani stayed at the house while Cam picked up some groceries and then we continued north for about an hour to Missinipe, arriving around 4 PM.

The cabin had a hot tub which wasn't very hot so Chance could take a dip in the evening. He really enjoyed the warm water.

Fishing from the dock proved successful and Dani landed a pickeral (about 1.5-2 lbs) and a 1-lb perch, delicious for supper the next night! We had some rain, but went into La Ronge for a better visit with family and were treated to a fish supper. We also visited Robertson's Trading Post, the very same that Chance is named for. Chance came away from La Ronge with a new toy from his cousin Tanika, a rider-car (which is actually a zamboni, Tanika told me). It has a horn that beeps and he loves it, along with the other attachments.

On Wednesday Cam told me that I needed to get down to the plane launch as soon as possible as he had arranged for me to hitch a ride on a flight to pick up 2 fly-in fishermen with Osprey Wings, the local float plane carrier. He had said that he wanted to make sure that I had some alone-time while we were on vacation, but I didn't expect this!

On Thursday we went for a hike along one of the prospector trails that had been cut by Cam's ex-employer, Golden Band Resources. We stopped halfway for a fire and lunch.

Chance didn't have one incident while we were at the cabin until the last night. Cam was cooking dinner and Dani was packing, and Chance pulled a small night table on top of himself. It was light, so it scared him more than hurt him, but still he had a little bruise on the bridge of his nose to show for it. At Grandma's there was a tussle with a kitchen chair that Chance got the worse end of. Poor baby has really toughened up though as he did not cry much once in Mama's arms.

We started back home on Friday and stayed for the weekend at Meadow Lake. Our trip to Calgary was smooth until about 100 km away from home. Then Chance had had enough of the truck and no amount of cheerios could placate him. The cheerio container spilled and we had to stop to dump out the car seat. There were tears and screams for the last 45 minutes of the trip. Chance was soooo happy to be home, and he clearly was excited to see Scarlet. I'm not sure how happy Scarlet was that we had brought Chance home.

All in all, it was a great vacation. The carpet is a little scratched up...kitty was not too happy all by herself, it appears. The garden is doing not bad, the darn spinach isn't growing though. A bit of junk mail to sort through and 50 emails to read, but everything else was pretty much in order. We are glad to be home.