We arrived in Winnipeg in the evening after leaving Riding Mountain National Park. We parked the camper after doing a driving tour of the city. On Day 16, which was August 28, we hit up the Forks, which is a National Historic site as well as a market. We walked around the Historic Site, and then across the Red River to St. Boniface Cathedral and Cemetery. It was Sunday, and they were having mass, but that didn't stop us from poking around. Beautiful old cathedral and cemetery, which is obviously still used today. After that, we walked back across the river to the Forks Market.

They have a lot of interesting foods at the Market. We sampled a few of the booths and went to grab some coffee and give Eli some food. What occurred next will forever be known as The Second (and greater) Coffee Incident of 2010. This was when Eli decided it would be a good idea to grab Char's steaming hot decaf single-shot 12-oz caramel latte (extra sugar) and dump it all over himself and Char, creating clever patterns with the stains.

If you don't like screaming babies, I wouldn't recommend dumping coffee on one. Boy, Eli went nuts. As it turned out, no one was burned, everyone was OK, Eli had a change of clothes, and Char likes wearing wet jeans. (Well, that's all true except the part about Char and the wet jeans.) So, we browsed around the mall a little bit more, and then went home.

That evening, we had a great dinner at Earl's, where pints of beer are 17 oz! That's what I call a pint! Eli had fun there, and we all enjoyed what they call their "Pan Bread", which is like a ciabatta, but cooked in a pan--good stuff.

The next day, we spent a good deal of time at the Manitoba Museum. It is a very well done museum, and includes a life-sized replica of the Nonsuch, the ship that sailed from England to the Hudson Bay to trade furs that eventually started the Hudson Bay Company. The Hudson Bay Company had the ship built in 1968 as part of their 300 year anniversary celebration. It sailed for four summers in the Hudson, Atlantic, and Pacific before they donated it to the museum. Very cool.

We left out of Winnipeg this morning, and after a loooong drive, ended up in Thunder Bay late this evening. We're going to explore Thunder Bay tomorrow and leave here on Thursday.

I write this driving from Winnipeg east toward Ontario. It's been a while since an update, so I will try to catch everyone up chronologically as best I can. We spent a few days in Edmonton, and on the drive between Edmonton and Winnipeg, we stopped at Riding Mountain National Park. We've been having a wonderful trip, but have had limited internet access. Should be some new pictures up soon, though.

Edmonton

After a delicious breakfast, we spent Carol's birthday at the Fringe Theatre Festival in Edmonton. At the Fringe Theatre Festival, we saw some exciting street performers, ate some chocolate covered bananas, and went to play at the kids' area. Eli liked the sandbox. On the way home, we stopped by the Edmonton science museum, which had several interesting exhibits, including a cool exhibit that allowed you to use forensic evidence to try to find a criminal. We visited the planetarium, where Eli freaked out, then ate (and spilled) Indian food and cheesecake for Carol's birthday dinner.

The next day in Edmonton, we went to Fort Edmonton, which we thought would be a small fort. Once we entered the site, we found that it turned out to be an entire city over many acres, with actors and all types of 1890s - 1920s era pieces. The main feature is the entire Fort Edmonton, reconstructed from notes and maps. Fort Edmonton was a fur trading post that was central to Edmonton's development. We spent a lot longer at the Fort than we had anticipated because we were having a great time.

The following day, Day 11, we took Carol to the airport and said goodbye, and spent the day catching up with a lot of things that we had neglected--some shopping, an oil change, and fixing a small problem with our hitch.

Riding Mountain National Park

We had a good day at Riding Mountain National Park, where we discovered the beach. It had been a very hot day, but about 10 minutes before we got to the beach, the sun went behind a cloud and the wind picked up. This made our brief dip in Clear Lake a little bit colder than we had anticipated.

The next day, we wanted to see the Visitor's Center, but got our directions mixed up and ended up missing it. We saw the Wishing Well, which was a natural spring and had a nice garden. We took the East exit from the park. We saw a black bear yearling on the way.

To be continued ...