Day 7, 31 July 2022: Travel Day – Nipigon, ON to Winnepeg, Manitoba

As the saying “Into each life a little rain must fall” goes, it did – most of the day. We resisted the temptation to ignore the weatherman and headed out this morning with the top up even though the few sprinkles stopped and there were peaks of sun. Just as predicted, about 2 hours into the trip the rain came. It’s a shame for the locals to have rain on their 3 day holiday weekend.

Wild flowers alongside highway

For the past several days we have been looking at pretty yellow wild flowers on the side of the road as we fly by. This morning we were able to see them up close. To Peggy, they look like long stemmed dandelions.

Well considering the weather, it is no surprise that we are in a motel again as we travel west. Today we crossed into Central Daylight Savings Time Zone, across the middle of Canada and entered Manitoba Province. Since we gained an hour today and the rain finally stopped for a few hours, we decided to push onto Winnipeg. The terrain continues to change as we travel west. The rolling hills and numerous lakes have been replaced with prairie and farmland.

 

Sign in front of funeral parlor

While traveling through downtown Winnipeg in search of a hotel, we missed the turn for Canadian Route 1 West. All was not lost. We found a nice hotel in North Winnipeg, NorVilla Hotel, and had dinner at Smitty’s Family Restaurant just up the road from our hotel. Our waitress was quite interesting and we enjoyed talking with her. She will be an exchange student in Glasgow next year. We had fun talking about our travels. The sign advertising the restaurant specials was misleading. It was close to the road in front of the entrance to a funeral parlor! We headed there first before we corrected our mistake. Well it’s been a good day, but it us time to tuck in.

Scenery at beginning of today’s journey.

They are everywhere.

Later on, it looks like this.

and this.