Outlook to Craik, 119km: Blizzards and coffee

Today was a “short day” with easy terrain. The “Living Skies,” as the Prairies are called, continued to surround us.

There were some exciting bits to the day which made the journey more enjoyable. One exciting moment was seeing the Big Snowman in Kenaston. Gee made a good comment, stating that by looking forward to seeing the snowman broke up the day so it would not be so monotonous, and he was right. Kenaston is known as Canada’s blizzard capital. The Big Snowman is the largest in Canada. Before I laid eyes on the snowman I saw the grain elevators, which stand, it seems, 100ft tall. I never saw a grain elevator before, so it was neat to see these large buildings in the Prairies. When I was approaching the location of the snowman I was envisioning a snowman as large as the grain elevators.....but it only turned out to be 18ft tall. Granted, Bud did tell us that the snowman was 18ft tall; however, my mind wandered and I envisioned a snowman similar in size to the grain elevators. It was a slight let down to see the snowman next to the grain elevators because it looked so small, but technically, it is pretty tall for a snowman :) A group of us took pictures and a snack break at the snowman which was fun and then we were on our way once again.

Myself, Erik, Rob, Dan, and Louise stopped in the town of Davidson where there was a random statue of a coffee pot and cup. This obviously called for a photo op so Louise and I took a picture of each other hanging off the cup. It was a day of random statues :)

When Louise and I got to the village of Craik we took a picture by the village sign because “Craik” in Ireland means fun, awesome, which Louise found amusing as she is from Scotland. Afterwards we headed to camp, which turned out to be totally craik :P 

The camp was fantastic because it had mosquito control. Since arriving in the Prairies, the mosquito population appeared to have increased exponentially. Our campsite had birds which would zoom around eating the mosquitoes. I was so grateful for those birds because they made the outdoors enjoyable :)