The morning started bright and sunny, and a wonderful temperature in the Gas City, Medicine Hat. I drove to Regina, Saskatchewan today. I must say, the first hour was great. The second hour was okay. The third hour I was bored. Bored silly. I have never been so bored while actually driving. It's not that the prairies aren't pretty, because they are, but it's just that it's straight. Then there's a little hill. Then there's a sign warning of a slight bend in the road. Then it's straight. Repeat for 11 hours. That was much of our day!
We stopped in Moose Jaw for lunch and to take the requisite picture standing under the giant moose. The pictures are on the cameras and I'm too tired to post them tonight. Besides, everyone who's been there has a picture under the giant moose so I'm sure you can figure out what it looks like. Replace the person/people in any said picture with Ian and myself. Done.
In Regina we switched drivers and Ian drove to Winnipeg. A few hours out of Regina I started feeling really car sick. I was trying to nap in the car when suddenly I felt like I couldn't breath, and I realized how hot it had gotten. Earlier in the day the sun was hot, and it felt hot on your skin, burning hot. But okay! I can handle that hot. Suddenly the air was so thick and heavy, even with the window wide open, that I couldn't seem to catch my breath. And I was thirsty! I took a sip of my water, only to realize it was hot. Like tea. But just water. And it wasn't satisfying my thirst at all. In fact, the warm water in my throat was making me feel worse and I suddenly felt dizzy and nauseous! I warned Ian to drive carefully - I might suddenly need to pull over. We were just about in Brandon, and when we got there I thought, it's not toooo much further to Winnipeg, certainly a bit longer and I'll be okay. Besides, we drove through it before I noticed really. Then, probably ten minutes or so out of Brandon I realized I really needed water. I was still feeling horribly nauseous and sooooo unbearably hot!! This stretch of highway seems to go forever without a single gas station/shop that sells cold drinks. Finally I asked for the TomTom and looked at where we were on the map. It indicated a "town" coming up, you know when the area is shaded brown? So we figured that was a good bet. The town was Sidney, Manitoba. We finally turned in, it's just off the highway a bit. No gas station. Luckily, there's a corner store. It happens to double as the Post Office, Library, Coffee Shop, etc. There were two little girls playing outside with water guns. The thought crossed my mind to ask them to shoot me. Instead, I went in and got two bottles (one for Ian of course!) of blissfully ice cold water. I've never been so happy to have cold water in my life. I paced by the car for a few minutes, willing the nausea to pass, and it did very quickly once I drank some water. I put the bottle down my shirt, held it to my neck, my cheeks, put it down my shirt again. It felt absolutely wonderful! My bottle was warm in about 20 minutes. Then Ian let me use his. That's love. I really have the most wonderful husband in the world.
The rest of the way to Winnipeg I watched these huge cumulonimbus clouds puffing up in the sky. It clouded over quite a bit and we even got a few drops of rain. I was willing those clouds to dump some rain on us and cool me down. I was begging them, silently. About half an hour after arriving in Winnipeg they had collected together and resulted in a thunderstorm. We went for a walk, and at the first clap of thunder I heard I think I cheered. It was a bit late, but I do love a good storm. Sadly, I never did see any lightning. We didn't go far because it did start to rain, and we hadn't had dinner yet. About ten minutes after we got back to the hotel, the clouds released a torrential downpour. We would have been soaked. I happened to notice on the Weather Network tonight that there was a tornado warning for Winnipeg, and one reportedly touched down in the North East apparently. I'm a bit sorry we missed that! (Just a bit!)
Tomorrow's supposed to be even hotter and I'm very scared I'll be car sick all day. We're driving south, into the states, and I'm really nervous about driving in these big cities. The love of my life says he'll drive all day if he has to. He says it's okay.
Could I be any luckier?
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