That was a long drive!

But we totally enjoyed it. I know, an 800 km (500 mile) drive is not the way we usually like to travel. We love road trips, but usually a long day for us is 200 kms (120 miles)!

We were up at 6:00am Tuesday morning, and driving out of the parking lot at the campground at 7:20am.

Not a lot of exciting scenery.

Snow geese resting in some of the ponds beside the highway.

But that doesn't mean we didn't see some interesting things.

So we're driving along, and we see a sign that says "Icelandic Memorial", and it points towards one of the nondescript villages along our route. Elfros, Saskatchewan is a little town that was originally settled by people from Iceland, and even today, 24% of it's current inhabitants are of Icelandic descent. Who would have thought, in the middle of nowhere Saskatchewan?!

Ruth, at the Icelandic Memorial in Elfros, Saskatchewan.

There's an Icelandic Club of Saskatchewan? Who knew...?

We're peacefully puttering along, cruise control on at 90 km/h (54 mph) and all of a sudden a coyote runs out into the highway in front of us! I hammer on the brakes and quickly pull over to the side. No other traffic around. The coyote keeps running, but Ruth grabs the little camera and quickly fires off a shot...

He actually stopped for a minute and turned around and looked at us.

What else did we see. Oh, how about a giant Santa Claus? These little towns along the way don't get a lot of visitors. Although, there are quite a few motels and community run campgrounds in each town. Anyhow, you can tell where some of them have tried some interesting things to make a name for themselves...

Home of the original Santa Claus Day. Hm. Okay.

Saw one other town that was bold enough to say that it was "The Best Place to Live in the World!" 

In the world, you say?? You mean, the whole world, right? This little town in rural Saskatchewan is the best place to live in the world???

Sorry, didn't take a picture of the sign, and can't remember the name of the town. All of you people looking for the best place to live in the world will have to keep on searching. Not getting any help from us!

And then we made it into Manitoba.

So we're listening to the radio, and the guy says "currently here in Winnipeg, the time is 4:30pm". I look at the clock on the dash, and it says 3:30pm. Huh? Ruth and I look at each other. How did we lose an hour? She checks the map. Nope, it lists the the time zone as being quite a bit further on, in fact we don't go through a time change until after Duluth next Sunday.

Then it clicks. Saskatchewan doesn't observe daylight savings time, so when we crossed into Manitoba, we kind of did lose an hour. So I had it all figured out that we would reach our destination at around 5:30pm and we were already a few minutes behind schedule, so now it was going to be closer to 7:00pm.

Oh well, all we could do was carry on.

No worries. Made it to Killarney, Manitoba and got settled with our hosts CJ and Kathy. This is an RV'ing couple who have followed our blog for a while and invited us to stop in. They even gave us the use of their motorhome. So guess what? We're camping tonight in the motorhome parked in the yard. Too fun!

But first, we had a quick meal and got acquainted.

Kevin, Ruth, CJ, and Kathy.

They had an ulterior motive for inviting us here. They want to go RV'ing in Mexico, so we're going to show them some pictures, and look at some maps and tell them about our experiences there. We love talking about Mexico!

Wednesday will be a day of rest. That is, no driving. We'll explore the town, and just play things by ear.

We're only 20 kms (14 miles) from the U.S. border!

Today's drive, 810 kms (503 miles).