Canada/West 2022:
Day 10 - Grasslands National Park

	Friday, August 19, 2022: We had a nice, leisurely breakfast of rice with almonds and chicken, accompanied by ice cold Diet Cokes from our fridge.
	As we were packing up, Tom happened to look out the window toward the airport and saw an absolutely huge rabbit in the grass. We watched it run across the grass at top speed, then it sat still in the sun for a while, and then turned into the taller grass and disappeared in the blink of an eye.
	We gathered our stuff, checked out of the hotel, and loaded the van. There was a truck parked near us with grasshopper carnage across its entire front grill. Our poor van didn't look much better. We vowed to get a car wash as soon as possible.
	This beautiful sculpture was across the street from the entrance to the airport. We had seen it the day before, but we got a better picture of it as we drove by in the morning light.
	Our first stop this morning was the Kiwanis Waterfall Garden. The park sits on 16 acres and was completed in 1963. The waterfall was beautiful and in a very peaceful area of the park.
	The deer on the crossing signs in Canada certainly seem to be energetic, don't they?
	We left the Regina area and headed back into the rural fields, ...
	... until we neared the outskirts of Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, ...
	... which happens to have western Canada's longest mini-golf course at the Battle Creek Adventure Park.
	That's not why were here though. We were at the Moose Jaw visitor's center to see ...
	... Mac the Moose. This 34 foot, uh, 10.36 meter tall sculpture was built in 1984 with the sole purpose of attracting tourists to Moose Jaw. Until 2015, Mac was the largest moose statue in the world, until a 30 centimeter taller moose statue was built in Norway. Mac is now billed as the tallest moose statue in North America.
	This cute little guy was keeping an eye on visitors from inside the fence around Mac. He wasn't frightened of us at all and stood there watching us until someone walked their dog around the enclosure. Then he retreated into the safety of the warren of holes under the statue.
	We headed across the street from the visitor's center to the McDonald's to get our daily ration of poutine, ...
	... and these adorable mini-donuts somehow made their way into our van. Called "Li'L Donuts," the flavors are Boston Cream, Double Glazed, Apple Fritter, Sprinkle, Strawberry Jelly, and Maple Caramel. They were all quite delicious.
	We filled up our tank at the Co-op gas station across the street from the McDonald's and decided to purchase a car wash with it, hoping to remove some of the thousands of grasshoppers off the front of the van.
	Apparently smoooshed grasshoppers are a big problem here, because the car wash code pad had a sign instructing us to apply the bug remover before entering our car wash code.
	Tom used the entire 45 seconds allotted for the bug spray and hosed down the front of the van before proceeding into the wash station.
	We passed a railyard with several Canadian Pacific locomotives standing by for freight cars.
	What's this? A tiny little town and, wait, is that a boat? Yep, during the Great Depression, a Finnish farmer named Tom Sukanen constructed a boat on the prairie and named it the Sontiainen, which is the Finnish word for "dung beetle." Legend has it that he built it in pieces so he could transport it to the Saskatchewan River, and from there he would sail it back to Finland. Unfortunately, before he could transport the boat to the river, he was hospitalized. While he was in the hospital, his ship was looted and the pieces scattered across the prairie. Some time after Sukanen died, another farmer tracked down the now scattered pieces of the ship, relocated them to this farm where there was a rural museum, and spent the rest of his life salvaging the boat and turning it into this monument. Crazy, huh?
	There were large tracts of farmland and isolated farmhouses as we headed south.
	This Cardlock Co-op gas station, known in Canada as a gas bar, would have been our last chance for fuel. Luckily, we still had a full tank from our last fill-up. Nice to know that it was out here though.
	There was lots of prairie to see, with hills for variety.
	See? The hills make it more scenic.
	We reached the turn from the nice paved road to the gravel road leading to ...
	... Grasslands National Park (East Block). We had reserved a campsite here for the night.
	But first, let's check out the Badlands Parkway.
	We drove a hundred meters or so down the parkway until we reached a turnout with an information station, ...
	... a nice gravel walkway, ...
	... and red chairs! Doesn't Debbie look comfortable?
	There was a nice view from the chairs looking south. The US border is only about five miles to the south.
	On the other side of the hill, there was a good view of the campground.
	Let's zoom in a little. Our campsite is near the left edge of this picture.
	These were grasslands so we expected to see grasshoppers here, but we were shocked at how large and colorful they were. This one has browns and whites and reds and greens. They blended into the grasslands so well that you didn't see them until they flew in front of you as you walked.
	We left the parkway and headed down to the campground. We stopped at the campground office to check in, then drove to our site, set up our tent, ...
	... and celebrated with a Schilling cider and a Diet Rite Pure Zero.
	This was the first time we had used our tent, so we experimented with lighting concepts until we had something that worked. There was no rain in the forecast, so we decided not to use the rain fly. Our tent has a mesh top, and without the rain fly, the entire top of the tent is transparent.
	A prairie dog came by to check out our camp.
	Our campsite had electricity, so we used our hotpot to boil water for our freeze-dried dinner. Tonight's main course was beef stroganoff with noodles, which is one of our favorites.
	We heard the sound of a very large truck nearby, and when we looked out, we saw this quasi-military vehicle drive by. It was a custom RV by Ormocar, built onto a Mercedes Unimog military truck, and it looked (and sounded like) it could handle any kind of terrain.
	We watched the sun set, and we could feel the temperature starting to come down. With absolutely no shade in camp, the inside of the tent had been quite warm.
	Tom walked up to the water station to clean up our dinner dishes, ...
	... and got this photo of our campsite with the last rays of sunshine.
	Down by the camp registration building, there was a sing-a-long going on. They seemed to be having a great time, singing all of the campfire standards.
	Our skylight brought in plenty of light, ...
	... until the sun was well and truly down. Our solar-powered inflatable lantern took over after that, and we settled down for our first night of sleeping outside somewhere other than the Colorado River. Day 11 >