Edmonton at the Evans's

We arrived on Sunday around 3 pm and the kids were waiting for us, Brenda was sitting on the porch and by the time we drove around to the back they were all there to greet us. Jorja said that it was going to thunder and sure enough within a few hours we had a lightning show. Irene took Jorja to the hairdresser and had her hair cut, what a difference she looks real cute with short hair. Time to make some doll clothes. What fun!

2 Days camping in Battleford, Sk

Camping at the Battleford's was a real learning experience. We travelled around North Battleford and Battleford seeing the sights. We found a very nice Cranberry Cyber Cafe to keep up with our email and blog work.



Guess what we found a Casino! Went in to see if we could make some of our winning money double itself. No such luck.
Fort Battleford is a National Historic site that was right beside our campground and we decided to take the guided tour with the Parks Canada Tour Guide.

Well worth taking the time and spending the money. The information was about the North West Mounted Police stationed in the area and the plight of the Native Indians on the reserves.

It also tells of the demise of the buffalo when it takes 16 dead buffalo to make one chair!

It rained most of the night before we were packing up to move on to Edmonton. We stopped in Wainright for coffee at their Tim Horton's. Boy has that town ever grown since our last trip through in 2001.

The Banquet and all the farewells

Rick and I washed the trike at the car wash this a.m. It got really dirty on our last ride. Then we took down the flags at the campground and went to the banquet hall and put them up on the walls with some sticky putty. Sure hope they are still up at dinner time. We are going down early to make sure! Well to our surprise they were still all hanging nicely.

Part way through the evening it was ironic that the flag of the only state that had no participants fell down. The meal was great.

Bill Keen, known as "Torch" the Metal work artist.

Our table consisted of Don, Hazel, Mark, Willy, Bill Keen, Lorette, Rick and I (Irene).

The entertainment was provided by Kelly a blind accordian player. He was really good and some people even got up and danced.

I (Irene) won 2nd prize on the poker run and got a white sweater with loons on it. Very pretty. Marlene McBain and her crew of volunteers did a fantastic job of putting on the rally and the banquet.

Weather plays havoc with our plans

You know what they say about "the best laid plans of mice and men!" Once again we found a hail storm while out on our own touring the countryside. Had to ride for about 20 km in strong winds and hail/rain. Ouch! The forecast calls for more of the same, but they got lucky and the scheduled ride was sunny with some winds. We came across a place where they warn you of lightning strikes out on highway 2. It wasn't a place to dilly dally!

We do have our free dinner courtesy of the Moose Jaw Casino to look forward to this evening and they are giving us each a $5 casino money coupon. (so I suppose the meal won't be free by the time we are finished),but we were wrong, between us we came out about $100. ahead. What a good feeling. Probably more gas money.
And we did make the newspaper, Times Herald had us on the front page with the heading "The open road leads here". There were 5 pictures and interviews. Rick and Irene Evan (spell error) were quoted as well. Yes, we do have a copy for ourselves to keep.
Tomorrow brings our banquet and closing.

Ride to Regina

We got up to another beautiful day although it was very humid. After breakfast it was the usual chit chat around the camps.

A lady reporter and male photographer from the local paper came around and asked to interview us. Hazel told her that Rick would be our spokesperson and he did a fine job. It will be interesting to see what comes up in the paper. Irene & I had signed up for a ride to Regina which was to leave at 2 pm and return around 10 pm.

The bikes were lining up by 1:30 pm so when there were about a dozen bikes ready we would leave. There were around 36 bikes going on the ride so they wanted to split us up into about 3 groups. For some unknown reason as our first group was pulling out not everyone seemed to follow and we only had 7 in our group, but everyone did get there okay.

"So you think you can get us to pay!"

Our first stop was a visit to the Royal Saskatchewan Museum of Life Sciences, First Nations and Earth Sciences. It was about an hour stop and was very interesting.

The exhibits were well done and impressive. Now it was onto the important stuff DINNER!! We went to the Classic Buffet and it was excellent, the organizers had pre set it up that we were coming and they had us all in a seperate room. There was a bit of confusion to where it was as the fellow leading the ride had never been there before, so I keyed it into our GPS and it took us there with no problem. After the dinner we went to the RCMP Heritage Center to watch the Sunset Ceremony and visit the Heritage Center. As we pulled into the parking lot we could see a STORM coming and everyone ran for inside. Before we could even get into the building LIGHTNING was hitting REAL CLOSE as there was no time between it and the thunder, needless to say the 45 minute outdoor Sunset Ceremony was cancelled.


Oh well that happens so we we did our tour of the Heritage Display.

The storm was pounding down outside as we could hear it even over the video we were watching in the auditorium. We were there for about 1 1/2 hours and when it looked like it had passed by we hopped onto the bikes and headed back to camp. We were lucky to have been able to ride back dry. Once more the GPS did its job and found us the quickest way back. Back at camp it was great to see that Mark and Willy had checked out the tents and put in the stuff that could get wet or blown away. I had laundry out and it was dry and in our tent. A big thanks to them!
As we are sitting here writing this blog in the early a.m. once again the thunder is rolling! Another day of mixed weather is coming up. Being bikers we grin and bear it or roll with the punches.

First Day of Rally and the Thunder Rolls

Well it sounded like thunder as more bikes rolled in all day long.The weather is great. It is fun saying hello to a lot of people we haven't seen since last years International Rally and others we see more frequently. Irene & I did the poker ride today but won't know the results until Thursday at the banquet. We went to a show this afternoon to get into some air conditioned space, we saw "Momma Mia" a comedy musical, and it was great.


The dinner this evening was sponsored by the city and was catered by the local sportsman club, it was very good.

The entertainment was a poetic cowboy (Lee Bellows) who kept us in stitches. Irene won 1st prize on the 50/50 - $140. That will help pay for gas!

FULL SUN!!!!

Don & Hazel arrived safe and sound late afternoon yesterday. After dinner Irene & I spent a few hours with them catching up on their travel adventures. When we got back to camp around 8:30 we found a note from the Mayor of Moose Jaw inviting us over to their home that evening. She served us Saskatoon pie (delicious) Now I quess I should explain!! Dale & Marlene McBain are o(Mayor)ur Saskatchewan club reps that are hosting our Motorcycle Rally, they both are avid riders.


Don, Hazel, Rick and I went out and did some shopping and then headed downtown to the Moose Jaw Casino. Hazel came out about $500 up and I $100. Felt good for a change. On the way back to the campground we stopped at Joeys Only for fish and chips. A lot of US & Canadian bikers started arriving this afternoon. In the evening we helped to set up the quonset for the Monday to Friday UMCI International Rally. The biggest challenge was getting all the flags, Rick came up with the genius idea of using my new lime green clothes to hang them on. Worked great. Good thing that Abe Peters had a step ladder! Everything starts at 9 o'clock in the morning. Looking forward to see the agenda as to what all our choices of rides are.

Relaxing in Moose Jaw, Sask.

It wouldn't be Moose Jaw without a Moose!!


Well today was a great day to take a city tour.

We went on a one hour trolley ride which left from the tourist info center across from our campsite, pretty darn handy.

They are always well worth taking as they tell you so much about the history of the city.

After the tour Irene & I did some grocery shopping and looked around in Peavy Mart (a sort of hardware store that you find on the prairies that cater a lot to the farmers) always very interesting. There were some ominous looking clouds and a few raindrops this afternoon but the blue sky and sunshine have returned! Oh yes, there is also a Tim Horton's across the road from the campground which we will no doubt make good use of. The majority of the riders to our rally will begin to arrive tomorrow.