Swan River, Manitoba

I think Swan River is about the halfway point, geographically speaking, of our eastward journey. It's taken us over a week to get here, though, what with staying two nights in Burnaby, three at Fairmont Hot Springs, plus losing time over the brakes and tire. We are now moving freely and, best of all, stopping whenever we want to, just by pressing on the brake pedal.

We spent last night in Ituna, Saskatchewan. It turned out that we had missed Mike's eightieth birthday party. It was on Saturday. Even if we had got the date right, the delay for repairs would have made it impossible to get there on time.  The bright side was that we got to eat the leftovers -- dolmades, borscht, plum cake, poppy seed cake, perogies, sour cream, mushroom gravy made with morels. Also, I'm much more comfortable in a small group of people than at big parties, so I was happy. Our hostess (Beatrice) and I exchanged knitting stories and played at show-and-tell with our various projects. When we left this morning, I was carrying a big bag of frozen perogies and containers of borscht and gravy. I just managed to fit everything into the Turtle's freezer compartment.  I fully expect to arrive in Ontario having gained another five pounds.

Now we're in Swan River, visiting more friends. This is our last scheduled stop before we get to my daughter's house. The next two or three nights, we'll  be winging it -- which is more like our usual style.