Hello, Canada!

We left Minot on Tuesday morning and drove due north for most of the day on our way to Riding Mountain National Park in Manitoba, Canada. It was dark and rainy, and the weather was true to its forecast of thunder and lightning storms toward late afternoon and into the evening. For our drive, it rained steadily for most of the day. The cloud cover was low, making it very dark.

We passed a few more abandoned structures before leaving North Dakota. For some reason, I'm charmed by these old buildings, no matter how badly deteriorated they are.

Within about an hour, we approached the border between the United States and Canada. Despite being office hours, there seemed to be no one at home on the United States' side. The gate leading from Canada into the United States was closed and locked, while the one leading from the United States into Canada was open, and we were free to pass by without speaking to anyone.

Possibly this station is closed??? No idea.

Nevertheless, we drove just a few more yards to approach the Canada side of the border crossing.

There, we spoke with a nice customs agent who checked our passport cards, asked us if we were carrying alcohol (just the four bottles we purchased in Montana), tobacco (no), or firearms (no). We had a nice little chat about the purpose of our visit, how long we expected to stay, and what we could expect from the weather.

Then, he bid us a good day and waved us on. And, just like that, we were paying our first visit to Manitoba province. Hello, Manitoba!

We've visited British Columbia, Alberta, and Ontario, but never Manitoba. Since we didn't go to Grasslands National Park, we skipped over Saskatchewan this time...maybe next trip.

Just minutes after crossing the border, we received this text message.

Well, heck, yeah! Tell us more about that. As it turns out, we can have international calling and data for $10 per 24 hours, and we're only charged if we use it. There's no need to cancel either. If we're not using it, we're not charged. Cool! We're going to check our account tomorrow because we've been using data ever since. We want to be sure we're not accumulating charges we don't understand. If our understanding is correct, we pay a flat rate of $10 per 24 hour period when we're using data and our data charges remain the same (unlimited for us) as if we were using it domestically. So that means that as long as we have a cell signal, we have internet access.

It's useful for blogging, texting, and generally staying in touch with the rest of the word, but the ability to map our trips and calculate distances using Google maps is proving invaluable. Fingers crossed that there are no hidden charges. We'll find out tomorrow after we've been using it for a full day.

As for the rest of our travel day, it looked much the same as North Dakota...flat, flat, flat open farmland

just as far as the eye could see.

Tonight we're staying just outside the national park in an RV park in Wasagaming, Manitoba. And we love Canadians. They're so trusting and polite. The man attending the RV park told us to go drive in, pick a site, and check in with him in the morning. So easy, and so nice after such a long, wet day of driving. So, I've said this before, but I'll say it again: You rock, Canada!

The weather is forecast to clear up by 6:00 tomorrow morning, and so we're hoping for nice weather to make our scenic drive through the national park. We'll stay here one more night, and then move on down the road, making our way to the Canadian side of Niagara Falls. We've mapped out the next several nights of stopovers and figured out where we'll stay. Our first stop will be at a Harvest Host site. This one happens to be a "rainbow trout and chicken farm." That should be interesting. We've already called ahead to be sure they can accommodate us.

Beyond that, we'll be staying one night in a traditional RV park, and then the following night, we'll stay free at a Wal-Mart in Thunder Bay. From there, we haven't planned any more. My friend, Cathy, suggested Grundy Lake Provincial Park just south of Sudbury, Ontario, and we are looking at that carefully. The park looks lovely, but the question is whether it can accommodate our large rig...always a concern in state-run campgrounds anywhere.

We've enjoyed every day of the trip so far, despite running into some bad weather about half the time. It's been an adjustment not to plan everything weeks in advance. The good part of that is living in the moment and making plans only one day at a time. The part we're getting used to is changing our minds on the fly and deciding to do something different. For example, we've kind of decided against spending any time in Pukaskwa National Park. After doing some reading and looking at it, we've realized it isn't really the kind of park one explores with a big RV. It's more of a hiking/canoing, kayaking experience, and so we may just stop in for a look-see and then drive on. And then that begs the question: Would we have come to Riding Mountain at all had we known it would be our one main destination in Manitoba? Maybe not, but who cares? The only authority we're answering to at this point is the weather. We just watch the weather and move along.

So...okay...all of that to say, here we are in Canada. Happy to be here. Looking forward to seeing what we see tomorrow. After that...who knows?