Prairie Boy

Monday started out with another great breakfast and long conversation with Don at the Country Flavor B&B. We headed off on a traveling day to explore somewhere between two and three hundred local museums. Here I had the rare chance for another reminder of how old I am by standing amongst the artifacts of my childhood and as other visitors walked by they would comment on the realistic looking bald oldtimer. “Strange he doesn’t wear a hat, they nearly all did back then”, I heard one visitor remark.

This was actually a great museum in Willow Bunch describing the local community with an emphasis on the sad life of Edouard Beaupreé. He was one of 12 children and grew to 8’3” high as a result of a pituitary gland tumor. This was in the late 1800’s and as his family was extremely poor he ended up as feature in travelling shows and had a horrible life.

Then we went to the St. Victor’s Petroglyphs to explore this Saskatchewan phenomenon. It will require another visit to really appreciate the rock drawings as they are fenced off and best seen with a guide at night and in the rain (three strikes against us).

I’m sure you can see the face on the rock surface.

Our next stop was Assiniboine, where a real bakery with real cinnamon buns and real coffee was open and ready to take our money. Lots of roads off into the horizon added to the driving beauty.

From there we decided to head for the East Block of Grasslands National Park. This turned out to be the most delightful, engaging and in many ways spiritual part of the trip. Parks Canada has put some money into a centre at this location with lovely picnic, camping and toilet facilities.

Not as good as Pat and Linda's at Twin Oaks but good.

The Park Interpreter was full of information about the possibilities and convinced us it was a great night to camp overnight. We went for a long walk over soft native prairie grass, busting with fresh blossoms from all the recent rain.