Battlefords to Prince Albert

Battlefords Provincial Park to Prince Albert National Park

3/22/2006

I road my newly clean bike in Battlefords Provincial Park. They had great trails. Annie and Elmo walked. It was good to get away from the city again. Annie, Elmo and I feel that we might be developing a city phobia. Life is so good in the woods. Camping (car camping) is something we enjoy more all the time. We are getting very good at sitting up and taking down camp. We will rival the guy sleeping under the table before long; well maybe not.

Part of why it is so good is that we are in nature all the time. We cook, eat, visit, read, play and write under the trees with the birds singing to us and the mosquitoes buzzing (sometimes). We are frequently shocked to see RV’s parked side by side in a dirt parking lot when the Provincial CG just down the road has private spaces surrounded by forest and close to a beautiful lake. Most of the government parks have hook ups for the RV’s and this time of year are virtually empty. The people in the parking lots must be there to commune with old and new friends. Friends are important, and if all your friends are in the dirt parking lot I guess that is where you camp. We do miss our friends. Cindy, you are a friend. Annie, Elmo and I have had to become better friends, and we have.

Battlefords Provincial Park was on Jackfish Lake. My fishing friends will have to tell me what a Jackfish is. The park was almost deserted. This is a great time of year to go north in Canada. A man I met commented on the empty park, “I guess not many people like fall camping.” Fall? I couldn’t help thinking about four 100+ days in a row back in Texas. Of course the aspen, birch and ground cover around here are beginning to show color.

We took Provincial 4 north to Glaslyn and then 3 east to Prince Albert, a modern city devoted to the ultimate principles of American materialism. I have never seen so many stores outside Frisco. I heard an advertisement for teen girls jeans on the local radio: “If your parents are going to make you go back to school, and you know you grades will suck, why not at least look awesome from behind. . .”

At Prince Albert we shopped (I got a cute new outfit) and then took highway 2 north to Prince Albert National Park. We camped on the shore of Waskesiu Lake in the Beaver Glen Campground.