#3: [13-Aug-11]

#1: [28-May-02]

08-May-2002 -- Continued from 50N 101W

Many thanks to our previous night's benefactors in Saskatchewan's improbably named capital, Regina. It was a bit of culture shock to go from camping and confluence hunting to a run-down urban row house with an old beer keg serving as overflowing ashtray. But we were greeted warmly by friends of a friend and soon got right into the spirit of things, which in Regina in May can only mean two things: beer and the Stanley Cup playoffs. Over copious amounts of both we learned many new phrases such as "shore up" and "rank", which in Canada is apparently complimentary.

We enjoyed a hilarious evening, capped off with a frigid midnight bike ride over the world's longest bridge on the smallest body of water, in the shadow of Regina's somewhat phallic capitol building.

This morning there is snow on the prairie, nice both for aesthetics and because the area has been gripped by a fierce drought this spring. We head south from Swift Current and close in on the confluence through a series of 90 degree turns on the perfect-grid roads of the Canadian prairie.

Our roadside parking spot leaves us only .5K from the confluence, across rich, black soil and through a thick windbreak customary of the area.

Alberta doesn't look promising for unvisited confluences, so we'll catch up with you in B.C. at 54N 123W.....