MANITOBA MEANDERINGS PART 2

When I finished the last entry I was headed for Winnipeg, where I arrived later that afternoon, at the home of old buddy Ken and his vivacious wife Barb.  We have all known each other since the 70s, Ken and I having been recruits together at the Royal Roads School for Boys, and so each time we get together it is just like we took a longish pause in a conversation only to pick up where we left off.  We got caught up on each other’s lives and families and were joined some time later by Piet, who had been a recruit with Ken and I.  We enjoyed a delightful dinner and evening, lots of laughs, interesting conversation, and for me later on a sleep in a bedroom, which was a nice change from the camper.

Now Ken is an engineer and he is very good at math, but when he made coffee the next morning he forgot how to count.  The coffee was therefore nuclear strength brew, just perfect for keeping me wide awake out on the road..........but I did not have to go far to meet another old colleague.  And even though I now have a functional GPS, the directions were so simple that I would just drive there with a map in my head.  Right.  Some number of diversions later, I found Lloyd waiting for me in the parking lot beside his place, and off we went for a brunch and a chinwag.  We had served together in Petawawa in the early 80s and of course we have hundreds of colleagues in common so we talked about who had died, who has what ailments, and how the world is going to hell in a handcart.  In other words, we had a glorious Grumpy Old Men’s Brunch.  He had to go to a medical appointment and so we parted “until the next time.”  Of course, one never knows if there will BE a next time, so all farewells are necessarily somewhat bittersweet at this stage of my life.

Both Geoff and Lloyd had told me about the new Cabela’s store in Winnipeg, which was in the same general area of town, and after getting lost a couple times trying to find the ENTRANCE to the place (HINT:  the entrance is nowhere near the big sign you can see from the highway...........), I did get to the parking lot and went inside.  Now for a person who hunts, fishes, and spends time in the outdoors, a Cabela’s store is like something of a shrine.  I went through the entire place, noting a few goodies that I would like to purchase – including a spare magazine for one of my rifles that I have along on this trip.  (For those who may be interested, it is a Tikka T3 Lite in 9.3 x62, quite a potent little package.)  I asked the fellow at the gun counter if by chance he had such a rifle in the store, (so I could confirm the magazine fit), suspecting that this was unlikely.  I was correct, but the fellow said I could bring the magazine back if it did not fit.  So I bought the mag and a couple trinkets and went back out to my rig. 

Now you would think that the sight of a person with a gun case, in the parking lot of a store that sells guns and gun cases, would be pretty much commonplace.  Instead I found myself the object of much attention when I removed the rifle case from the cab of the truck and took it into the camper.  I half expected to find myself surrounded by a tactical police team, chewing on the asphalt and enduring a pat-down and rectal probe.  Anyways, the magazine fit into the rifle just fine, BUT the ammo I had made was a hair too long.  When I made that ammo (at home some time ago) I ensured that it would chamber in my rifle, and also that it would feed reliably from the magazine.  But I had only loaded the magazine with a single cartridge to confirm it was not too long for the mag.  Now THERE was a senior moment!  My ammo that I have with me for two hunts is all just a hair too long to feed reliably.  So if I need a second shot at an unhappy bear, or whatever, the cartridge that SHOULD load into the chamber might just decide to stay in the magazine instead.  This is what is called, in technical terms, A Very Shitty Situation.  Somewhere along the road I am hoping to meet a fellow firearms enthusiast who has the reloading tools I need to seat those bullets a bit deeper.  I suppose I could just push them in with a hammer, like the frozen logger did with his whiskers, but it strikes me that doing so might not be a good idea.

I put the gun case with its secret contents back into the truck cab, taking great care to be as surreptitious as possible, then hastily returned to the store before the tactical unit might arrive.  Once safely inside, I bought a few more essential items and, seeing that the coast was clear, got back into the truck for the next leg of the trip.  There was a Shell station close by, with the best price on diesel fuel that I have seen so far this trip (92.9 cents per litre) and I topped off the tank.  Manitoba had the least expensive fuel on my 2011 trip and so far this is true this year as well.

I was heading to Grandview Manitoba and set the address in the GPS.  It would appear that the GPS was somewhat confused as to my exact location, and I turned onto the Sterling Lyon Parkway going exactly the wrong way.  After the GPS voice (Bitching Betty, I call her) had told me twelve or fifteen times to make a U-turn where possible, I was doing just that when she decided that there was an alternate route.  I should have done the U-turn, since I soon found myself on residential side streets and then into a road which was closed for construction, all of which delayed my departure from Winnipeg by about an hour......... Man, I love technology..............

Thankfully this day’s travel was not lengthy and by early evening I was finally in Grandview, where I looked up old friends Doug and Joan, whom I last saw in 2011 also. 


 


 






We had a good update, Doug took me on a tour of the town and especially its museum (see pictures above), but I was happy to crawl into the camper for a night’s sleep.  It chilled off nicely overnight and I even got my blanket to put over me.  I needed to put some miles on the truck the next day, so I got up and left fairly early, with just enough time to bid Doug a fond farewell.  The next stop was Saskatoon, which allegedly was six hours distant.  HA!