Today, after a bit of a sleep-in, some delicious breakfast (compliments of Anne) and some more visiting, we hit the road at around 11. We drove up Highway 4 towards Kyle, SK (where we stopped at the Co-op for a few picnic groceries before heading to Clearwater Lake and my family's cabin. This cabin originally sat at Crystal Lake in the 1930s (it belonged to my great grandfather) before the lake dried up, and they just moved the cabin to Clearwater, where it's been ever since.
The provincial road towards the lake was torn up for about the first km. We felt pretty lucky to be in prairie flat land so that we could see that it was only bad for that first little bit, and then it was fine. Otherwise we would have had to be a lot braver to head down that way. When we arrived at the park (the lake is in a Regional Park) the booth was closed, so we had to go to the office to pay our daily rate for the park, which we did, and then walked down to Main Beach for a look around (the water level here, too, was very high, making for an even smaller "Main Beach" than can be explained by the fact that everything is bigger in your memories from childhood... after that, we drove around the lake to the cabin.
When we found it (after going the wrong direction only once!) I looked at the cabin for the first time in easily 25 years (it has been kept in excellent repair by my uncle George and family), and was a bit overcome with nostalgia and memories of family summers of the past. We let ourselves in and the waves of stories and memories just kept coming! I really spent some amazing times there, and the fact that almost everything is exactly as I remembered it just made me imagine that at any moment, one of my cousins would come around the corner (and we'd all be kids again, waiting for Grandpa to come back from his secret trip to the store to bring us the candy our moms said we couldn't have so close to dinnertime). It was actually a little overwhelming and I got a little maudlin - good thing Adam knows he married kind of a drama queen!
We ate our picnic lunch (sandwiches on delicious buns we bought at a cute little cafe in Wolseley SK where we had lunch on the way to Swift Current, and potato salad) and hung out a little while before closing the cabin back up again and heading North towards Rosetown and Saskatoon!
When we got to Rosetown, we drove up Main Street to where my Grannie Pinckney used to live. The house is still there, and looks very much the same, except that some trees have been removed, and several houses have also been removed to make way for a giant Co-op store that has moved in as the house's new neighbor. The house itself looked almost exactly the way I remember it (at least from the outside) and again, I was transported to summers and Christmases as a child when we would come to Grannie and Grandpa's to visit, and play games in the "porch room," or look in all the built in cabinets in the basement for treasures.
From Rosetown, off we went to Saskatoon. We made good time, and arrived at George and Maida's in time for a visit out by the pool (I was very tempted to dive in, but decided to hope for better swimming weather tomorrow) and some fantastic meat pies and salad for dinner.
After dinner, George drove us around past our old house, the Bessborough Hotel, the Mendel Art Gallery, the gazebo in the park where I remember dancing on the grass while Dad played with the Bridge City Dixieland Band, and the neighborhood where Mom and Dad lived when I was born (although the actual house has been torn down and replaced. It was so thoughtful of them and I loved it (and Adam was a very good sport)!
We stayed up talking and telling stories and getting caught up (and Maida and George getting to know Adam) until about 11 or so, and then went to our room to (write blogs) relax and get ready to sleep.
Wish me luck for a sunny morning by the pool, and then it's off to Edmonton!
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