Winnipeg

Now I'm in the west.  The land flattened out west of the Lake of the Woods and the wind gusts made the Mazda sway at times.  A white cat jumped out of a ditch and dashed across the highway in front of me;  there was nothing I could do but hit it and send it flying.  I looked back but saw nothing.  It must have landed in the opposite ditch.  I felt awful, but cars were behind me and coming at me;  I just drove on.  So far this has been the only bleak patch on the trip.

I had a good rest and visit with Bill in Thunder Bay.  I went with him and Paula to an int./adv. yoga class.  I've been doing yoga since I attended a class in Quebec City in 1974, but this is the first formal session I've been to since.  It was a sobering experience.  Some of the positions were new, and by the end I was in a sweat.  But after the final minutes of measured breathing and focused relaxation of the entire body I stood up, looked out the window across the bay at the Sleeping Giant and thought I would try to find a yoga class in Vernon.  After the class, we joined Barb in the Hoito for breakfast, went for a walk around Mount McKay and home to Bill's for a delicious dinner made by Patrick.  Bill made me blueberry oatmeal in the morning, scraped the frost off the car, gave me a pair of driving gloves and I left for Winnipeg at 8a.m.

The Trans Canada out of Thunder Bay is a two lane road patterned with cracks filled with fresh tar and bordered by gravel shoulders.  It's hard to believe it's the main highway across the country.  The grass on either side was faded by frost and the poplars and birch had lost most of their leaves so only the Tamarac were yellow among the conifers.  The bare branches and cold made the coming of winter a reality, but by the time I got to Winnipeg the sun was setting in a clear sky;  the temperature rose to 25c. by Mon. afternoon.   I've either seen or talked on the phone with a lot of relatives here.  Danny and Rita had their kids for dinner and a lot of other Van de Vyveres later for coffee and dessert on Sun. night.  The talk went on 'til midnight.  Today I talked with Jay on Skype; Marg and Ken and Bert and Joanne on the phone; helped Danny and Rita look after Dawn and Lino's 2 little kids; went to Lino's birthday dinner and returned exhausted to write this and hit the pit.  I'm going to try to get west of Regina tomorrow.