I’m told that Saskatoon was merely a seven hour drive from Winnipeg, and so, steering my old car through the traffic and around the potholes of late morning Portage Avenue, I drove away from the sun. Before long I was at Portage La Prairie, where years ago I had guessed that Manitobans don’t use a French pronunciation for French words.
There I turned north to Highway 16, which I am told is slower, but at my highway speeds, one hundred kms an hour, it makes little difference. Not far along the road, I stopped for a long train, and tried filming the endless passing of freight. I drove straight through to Russell, on the border of Saskatchewan, and stopped there for lunch. That was the first I noticed that my butt was sore from the car seat, a pain that I was only to slowly learn the implications of.
The rest of the run into Saskatoon was fairly smooth. I stopped a few times for construction and entertained myself by looking at the passing countryside. The sloughs are full, and each one has a duck or two in it.
I came into Saskatoon by rush hour, for it always seems to be my fate to enter a city when the traffic is heaviest. Luckily, with the new circle drive as they call it, I was soon in the western part of the city and had turned off 11th and circling the neighbourhood trying to find the street where my friends live. Years ago it was much easier to find since I crossed the country more frequently.
It was nice to see my friends again, and to note that their children have grown into adults, except for the youngest, who is thirteen. My butt was sore from the driving, but we soon settled into the catching up we used to do. The young adults, busy with their own lives, filtered in and out of the house as we chatted, and before long I was sleeping despite my aching hip.
The next day, at my friend’s insistence, I checked my radiator fan and found that it had somewhat seized, overheated, and then partially melted the plastic surround and its plastic blades. Then it slumped into the radiator itself. We went to a junkyard and I bought a ten dollar fan, and picked up a few fuses as well.
When it was installed, we set up a tarp in the backyard with a screen and watched the movie, The Martian. I’d seen it before, but it was nice to do as a family. Since the pain in my butt and leg were still a concern I talked to my friend about sciatica. Perhaps I had sat poorly in the car, and aggravated my spine. My friend recommended some yoga moves, and they seemed to help somewhat. Only later did I realize I’d found the wrong end of the stick.
We made plans while I was there to cut down a huge tree in the backyard, but that will have to wait until my return.
