Car Graveyard

I turned my alarm off this morning for what seemed to be the 20th time. I realized I could delay it no more… I must get up and leave Winnipeg.

I showered, gathered all my stuff, and checked out. I hit a coffee shop along the way and picked up a muffin for the train ride.

Although I slept in too long, and couldn't go out for breakfast, I did have some extra time before the train left the station. I headed back over to Forks. I picked up some fresh fruit, and a sandwich (and a brownie…shhhhh!) for the train ride. I once again walked along the historic nature walk.

This time I decided to stop and chat with the locals. SpongeBob called them wild animals, but they seemed pretty civil. I saw this awesome billboard overtop of the bridge to cross the river.

It was peaceful to listen to the river flow along, and watch it slowly trickle along.

Said my Goodbye to Winnipeg!

I got to the station early, hoping to get a good seat on the train. There was a huge group (20ish) of kids there. Maybe not kids, but late teens (14 - 17). I looked over at them throwing things at each other, playing clapping games, and repeating silly names at each other.

My stomach flipped with the idea of the coach car being full of these loud teens, and I possibly having to share a seat :( I tried to get to the front of the line, getting to choose the best seat. However, Via-Rail is awesome and attached a second Coach car for the occasion. They are all in the other car. The dome car is much busier.

Right after we crossed the boarder between Manitoba and Saskatchewan we went into the Qu'Appelle Valley. This valley stretches for about twenty-five miles and was formed by the giant ice sheet that covered Canada about 12 000 years ago. I really enjoyed seeing the carving, and erosion left behind from tens of thousands of years ago. (Yeah, Nerd here!)

We had a quick stop in Melville. I jumped off the train and noticed a graveyard for old cars. I couldn't help but turn my camera off of auto, and play with the shutter speeds and what-nots to get some shots of the these beauties. Most people would think this is junk, but I really enjoyed taking these photos. I really like the way that time and circumstance can alter something's appearance to become what we see today. I love the way that the rust is eating away at the car's exteriors and how abandoned and unloved they look. I hope you enjoy these photos.

Winnipeg Wanderings

          I awoke this morning to a quite knock, and a voice, "housekeeping?" 

I groggily answered, "please come back."

I rolled over, and the clock read 9:12am… thanks HouseKeeping devil! I felt too awake to consider going back to sleep… and besides it's my only full day to see Winnipeg. I wanted to get up and explore. However, I switched on the TV, and watched some cartoons. The warm of the bed kept me from climbing out of it for at least an hour or two.

           By the time I left my hotel it was a little past noon. Using my fancy apps, I picked out a nearby breakfast place and headed North (pointed that way by my trusty phone). I was headed about four blocks to the Black Sleep Diner. Seemed pretty suiting for me:) I got to head in a new direction on my walk. I passed by the University of Winnipeg. It was a Giant brick building… not much else to say about it.. Nice bricks?

           Upon my arrival to the Black Sheep Diner, it was packed! There was a line-up literally out the door. Using my knowledge of restaurants, and my year as a hostess, I did a quick table count, and realized I wouldn't be seated for at least half an hour. At this point it was almost 1pm, and I really wanted to go to the Museum, which closed at 4pm (Damn Sundays). I didn't stay there… instead I looked up another place for breakfast and headed due West. 
          My walk there was pretty entertaining. I saw an Elmo dolls strapped to a truck. I thought it was cute… but then I wondered what they were trying to say with it. "If you fuck with us, we will do this to you!" OR "We like to strap things down!" OR "Let's make our truck a torture chamber of death!" What do you think they are saying with this??

          When I hit the coffee shop/breakfast place, it was closed… damn Sundays! Oh well.. At this point I had stumbled into an older part of town, and I could tell that some of the older buildings had historic significance. I admired the architecture, and realized that time was surely passing by. I headed back towards the downtown to see if I could find some food, and a cab to get to the musemum.

           I passed this theatre, that had an amazing brick wall with so many fire escapes to nowhere. I felt that people were going to appear out of somewhere, and start rehearsing for West Side Story. I started snapping, and doing the side-step walk and singing… I realized I was alone in doing this, and a family was backing away with horrified looks on their faces, so I promptly stopped. Jess, you were totally there with me, dancing right along!

          Without seeing any sort of cab or breakfast place I did the Canadian thing, and ducked into a Tim Horton's. No, my Rrrrrrrroll up the Rim to Win did not (win). It was just after 2pm now and I realized that not only was the musemum on the other side of town, but I would really only have about an hour to enjoy it. 

          However…. the Winnipeg Art Galley (WAG, hehehehe Wag!) was only a couple blocks away, and was open until 5pm. I felt a little bit like I was cheating or something, simply because I have never been to the AGO (Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto). Well, anyways, here I am heading into this gallery.

           They had an exhibit on called the View. It was featuring a lot of art before the 20th century. There were a lot of cool hand painted, and hand crafted dishes from Canada, Britain, and China from the 1700s.

There were a lot of traditional paintings (mostly Roman, and British) from 1600s - 1800s. There were also some less traditional, more obscure paintings from the 1700s and a lot of these were Canadian. 

           I saw my first Emily Carr painting. Put a smile on my face to finally see some of the historic impact she has made. I've always heard the name, but didn't know anything about her.

          My favourite exhibit was called,"Through the eyes of Children". It was all artwork made by children. It would tell the name and age of the child. There were oil paintings, clay sculptures, schetches, decorations, forts, costumes, all sorts of stuff.

It reminded me how inventive kids can be.

          My two favourite pieces were great. One was a rocket ship/ airplane, made out of boxes, painted in different colours. There were stars and different designs stuck to all sides of it. The wings were like an airplane and painted with black and white stripes. There was a place for a small child to sit and "drive". There was a steering wheel created out of hubcap, and on the "dashboard", there were different leavers made out of handels, and the buttons to press were actually clothing buttons. This made me so happy. I wish I could have taken pictures in the Gallery, this place had such a happy nostalgic feeling.

          The other piece I loved in the children's Gallery was this boat. It was a five foot tall boat made out of paper machie. The front of the boat had a giant dragon's head. It had a full mass, and sails painted in matching colours. The crew were all little paper machie people. Most of which were Vikings all different looking. Their clothing and hair was made out of cloth and different materials. One doll had a total pirate get-up, eye-patch, peg leg, bandana, striped shirt. Another was wearing a traditional viking hat, with Pippi-longstockings type braids hanging out the sides. I must have examined this boat for at least five minutes or so.

          WAG was also doing a showing on Warner Bros. It showed a lot of the old illustrations from the 30s and 40s, as well as a little segmented section on each character. It was mainly Looney Toons characters… did you know Daffy Duck, and Porky Pig and older than Bugs Bunny?!? I never knew. There were a lot of write-up about all of the characters. Complete with tables on portions for illustrators to be able to redraw them. 

There was a create your own toon section, and I sat down with some children for a bit to draw and colour. There was also a wall were you could hang your art, and a lot of the pictures drawn by visitors were pretty good. 

Behind the drawing area, was a viewing area, they were playing Looney Toons traditional cartoons. There was more people watching the cartoons then anywhere else in the whole Gallery. I watched Silvester try to eat Tweety, and the Road Runner out smart Willi E. Coyote.

           The gift shop was a lot like the gift shop at the ROM. Selling thing that have nothing to do with an art gallery or musemum; like lamps, or vases. Umberellas, or napkins. But an entertaining little shop anyways. I wanted to be a dry-erase board of the paining "the scream", but I knew I wouldn't be able to carry it home in a couple weeks, so I passed.

            From there I continued wandering around downtown. I discovered this giant dog as he tried to eat SpongeBob. I came to his valiant rescue as I wrestled with him for my safe return of my Sponge. This dog is supposed to resemble these two different breeds of dog that were mixed in Winnipeg. The plaque said something like if they could survive here, then they could make it anywhere.

         In my wandering I ended up in Portage Place, and bought a couple tank tops. I realized that it's a bit colder than I would have hoped and they will be good to layer up and keep me warm. Also, I noticed… for a town that no one wear's heels, they sure have a lot of shoe stores!! In the same mall they had a Payless, ShoeWarehouse, Athletes' World, Steps, and two other no-name shoe stores… I felt like I should have bought shoes or something. I did see a single person wearing heels… she didn't speak a word of English, and I assumed she was also a tourist like me.

           After my shopping excursions I grabbed some dinner and headed back to my hotel. Also, my foot was killing me, having smashed it in a heavy door on Thursday before I left the city. It's pretty bruised, tender and swollen. Makes it a bit hard to walk around for more than six hours at a time.

            Knowing how sleep is on the train, I wanted to get in a good night's rest. I also have planned to get up early and grab breakfast before the train, which boards at 11am. I did play some Nintendo 64, and watch some bad movies, while I packed up my stuff.

Winnipeg

          After the sun went down, I got comfy in my seat and watched a couple episodes of Planet Earth. I got sleepy and stretched out across my seats to nap for the evening. I was awaken every hour or so to the train stopping, either to let a freight train pass, or to let passengers on or off. Also, the attendants walking past me would wake me to as they awoke the passengers and got them ready to leave. Or welcomed the new passengers and orientated them to the train. I remember at one point being quite annoyed that we still hadn't arrived in Winnipeg.
          As we stopped I noticed that some of the families were getting off the train. Little Ava, and her young momma were the first to leave at Sioux Lookout, at about midnight. Passing their empty seats heading to the washroom felt different. A couple hours later the native family mommy, daddy, brother of 7 years old and baby were the next to leave. I didn't want to lose any more of my coach mates... but then I realized.... I was next!

          I fell back to sleep an hour or so later. I awoken this morning to the sun rising in the prairies. It was such a different site from anything I'd seen before. The land stretched out for miles and miles, no hills, and no trees. I could tell that the prairies were coming because the trees kept getting shorter, and had less and less branches. The evergreens were getting so skinny.
          We arrived in Winnipeg around 7:45am. I climbed off the train, as a different kind of feeling overwhelmed me. It wasn't completely sadness for leaving my coach-mates and comfort of the train. It wasn't completely fear for being alone in a brand new city. It wasn't completely the exhaustion I felt from a lack of sleep in four days. Maybe a mix of all, with a mild bout of excitement for the trip I was about to embark on.
          From the train station I used my fancy phone to find the closest breakfast place. I ate at a Pancake house (called Pancake House). I tried their pancakes.... which made me realize as much as I like pancakes, they are never what I except them to be, and am constantly disappointed. I should really only eat pancakes when I make them. I make them to be much thinner, more like crepes, and usually add bananas. Yum! I would like some now...
          Anyways, the scrambled eggs had great flavour, the bacon was perfectly cooked. The hash browns were perfectly cooked, but could have used more seasoning... and the pancakes, were pancakes.
After breakfast I began to wander around this area of Winnipeg called "the Forks".
          I headed towards the water and noticed a giant area with a historic landmark. When I first got there, there was a fitness group using the area as their own home gym. They were running around the monument, and using the viewing benches to do exercises off of. I felt like I was bugging them, and sat by the river for a bit.
          When I was ready to, I headed back to the monument. It was this circular rock thing with these large metal arches over top of the giant half sphere. The metal was designed to allow the sun to shine different symbols through shadows and light. SpongeBob climbed up on the rock sphere and tried to decode some of the symbols. He said it resembled Squidworth's music or something... I wasn't quite listening, he tends to ramble on a wee bit from time to time.

           I followed the river and discovered the Plaza. This is a nice skate park that was full of young skateboarders using the various ledges, bowls, half pipes, and ramps. The coolest thing I saw was this hill type thing. It went up and down like a wave, and I kicked around for a bit to see if anyone would ride on it. No one did. This park was the biggest skate board park I've ever seen, with the most equipment. It was entertaining to watch. Although I did notice the age of the skaters were much younger than what I would expect. Usually at the Bathurst skate park is anywhere from 15 - 30 year olds, where at this park were 10 - 16 year olds. Much younger kids.
          After watching the kids skate for a bit and realizing I missed skating with my brother, I left the park and decided to follow the river. There was a nice nature path that I followed along. It was peaceful. The river was overflown and a lot of the paths down to it were chained off and closed due to flooding. It was slow moving, and seemed like it had only recently unthawed.

          I stumbled upon another monument of sorts. At first I thought it was these weird copper pipes pointing to the sky. As I got closer I noticed it was huge. There were steps leading down in the centre. I was so confused as to what it was. In all directions the copper pipes were set up circling the huge area. In the very centre was a circular sun. There were plaques all around the centre. As I went over to read the plagues I noticed each one was about different constellations. It told when they would be the most visible, and a little bit about their historic significance.
          I realized that each of the copper pipes pointed out the constellations, and if you stood on top of the sun in the centre, you could clearly see these sites. I thought this was grand! It was something I was very interested in, and I wished that my hotel was closer to here so I could have gone there and saw all the different figures in the sky.
          I then wandered around the Forks market for a couple hours. It's kind of on par with St. Lawerence Market, only slightly more pricey, due to mainly tourists. I liked checking out all the specialty shops, and seeing all the organic produce. I spent about an hour in this antique market. It was full of items 50 years old and older (at least that's what they promised). The antiques market reminded me of my father's house. I saw a lot of similar dishes, decorative ornaments, blue cobalt glass (he collects this) which became popular in the 1950s. It made me wish to see him.
           Eventually I made my way back to the train station and picked up my luggage. I started my walk to my hotel. Two people along the way asked me if I was headed home. I smiled... the whole time I was wondering around Forks I felt like people were staring at me. For one, I noticed that NO ONE in this town wears heels. So my clip, clip, clop, as I walked certainly attracted people's eyes. I also haven't seen anyone in my age range who wasn't native. I was probably the only red-haired girl running around the city. But people asking me if I was headed home... well, I guess I really didn't stand out that much.
I walked uptown, getting a chance to see some of the city. I found out where the shopping centre was, where some places to have dinner and what-nots.
          I checked into my hotel, no issues, and finally got to shower. SO AMAZING!! Having space to spread out my belongings and having access to my giant suitcase was great.
            I took a brief nap and headed out for dinner. I went to a casual pub and sat at the bar. Had me some wine and dinner. Got into a bit of a chat about the Leafs with Captain Hook... He wasn't Captain Hook, I don't remember his real name... but he was this 47 year old guy with a hook for a hand. Our chat was quite brief, as I was ready to head back to my hotel.
Once here I called my brother and we chatted for a while. Then my exhaustion got the better of me and I fell asleep watching Doctor Who. Hehehe