Greetings! Day 4 on the road, and we’d like to begin by thanking the friend who reminded us to put RainX on the windshield before setting out into the Prairies. Schming (otherwise known as Val) is currently struggling to keep the Taurus straight as it muscles through a torrential downpour. Helllloooo Manitoba!!

I’ve been the delinquent blogger avoiding my duties and Schming is on my case, so we’ll start back from the beginning to keep her happy: 7am Sunday morning, she and I hopped onto the Greyhound to Toronto. And by hopped, I mean crawled … we’d been at our friend Casey’s wedding the night before, so not much sleep was had. We strategically chose the three-seater area at the back to sprawl out and sleep … except we underestimated the power of the washroom strench, and the sleep party was crashed by a rather large and chatty woman. Off to a good start.

Upon arrival in Toronto, we united with our travel companions: HP (aka Heather) and the Taurus. Lisa (HP’s sister and the owner of the car) made a surprise guest appearance - she’ll be flying to Vancouver and meeting us there, so she’ll be the judge of how haggard we’ve become post-journey. After a quick Quiznos, we big goodbye to Lisa and hit the road for the journey to everyone’s favourite vacation spot: WISCONSIN. HP had a meeting in Milwaukee, so gameplan was to bypass Northern Ontario, dip under the Great Lakes and then head back up to Winnipeg.

Some ground rules were quickly set out: my country-heavy playlists were unpopular, and I complained that HP’s euro-ultra-vocal-trance was making me homicidal, so to avoid conflict we agreed that driver picks the tunes. This is proving successful, though I’m definitely sneaking in the country when we hit Calgary!!!

Interesting sidebar: apparently an Ontario accent is indecipherable across the border:

Jackie: I’ll have a salad, please.

Subway dude: Uh, so like a footlong sub?

Jackie: No, a salad.

Subway dude: Huh?

Jackie: Salad.

Subway dude: Oh. A salad.

A Blue Rodeo singalong kept Schming and I awake through the last legs of the 12-hour trip (clearly HP was not driving). Around midnight, we arrived at our hosts’ home in a Milwaukee suburb that we assume was the model for Pleasantville: perfect lawns and wraparound porches surrounding giant homes housing (what we assume are) perfect little families. Barely awake and disheveled post-wedding and 17 hours straight travel, we felt like total riffraff. Schming and I sta

yed in an 8 year-old’s room, full of a mix of sports and religious memorabilia. I slept like a baby.

After a quick run through Pleasantville, HP left for her meeting, and Schming and I set off to somewhere more along our wavelength: the Miller Brewery! Our free tour got us a thorough tour (DID YOU KNOW that the brewery produces 500,000 cases of beer a day?!) and three free samples. It’s MILLER TIME!

That afternoon we set off to Minneapolis, where we decided to stop for the night, purely so we could check out the Mall of America the next morning. Our brief encounter with Minnesota was agreeable: friendly waitresses, a nice hotel, and groups of young men downtown offering us ‘extra-special’ hospitality … ahem. The Mall was not small. HP and I dragged Schming on the indoor rollercoaster. Schming is not a fan of rollercoasters, but we figured, how bad can an indoor rollercoaster really be?! It was even Spongebob-themed, so like, for babies. But no: I love rollercoasters, and this was a scary rollercoaster. Schming might still be recovering. But she did good.

This is getting long. Let’s wrap this up: so yesterday evening we trekked north from Minneapolis, across the border to Winnipeg. We learned that there’s not much going on along the Fargo-Grand Forks route: we ended up eating Chex Mix and truck stop sandwiches for dinner. But we got a pretty sweet sunset.

HP again set the accommodation bar high in Winnipeg: we stayed at a beautiful home of her friend’s family, where we were greeted by comfy beds and a spread of food that mercifully did not include Chex Mix. This morning we were introduced to Winnipeg’s claim to fame: apples pancakes that are comparable to giant beavertails. Delicious, but we all just put on 10 pounds or so…

Well the sun’s back out and everything is yellow, just as promised!! Tips, our trusty GPS, tells me we have 5 hours or so until we arrive in Saskatoon. Stay tuned, if I haven’t bored you to tears yet…