Dog (River) Days

Corner Gas. I've mentioned it before and click on the links at the end of this post to get a better idea of what I'm talking about. It's a TV show set in the fictional "blink and you miss it" town of Dog River, Saskatchewan. It's a comedy about a town where nothing happens and Laura and I are big fans.

We are not the only ones. The Premier of Saskatchewan (SK) has had a cameo on the show, as has the Prime Minister. The best part is that it has made a province which is the butt of the rest of the country's jokes, into a winner due to being able to laugh at itself.

Regina, the capital of SK, is halfway from Calgary to Winnipeg. Winnipeg is far enough away for there to be a time difference. Laura and I were planning on going to the outdoor set of Corner Gas in a weekend.

Doing it was both a team effort and a credit to Laura's stubborness in planning and achieving goals.

We headed out of Calgary on a Friday night in late April after work, stopping long enough to leave a copy of my cardboard, partly handwritten, issued in Wagga Wagga international driver's licence with her car insurer. They didn't bat an eyelid, those trusting Canuks. Willie Nelson was put on the CD player and we were On the Road Again. We were Thelma and Louise that weekend, except Laura didn't shoot anyone and I didn't sleep with Brad Pitt.

Laura drove late into the night, which required some nerves of steel as not only were there no electric lights on the highway, there were no "cats eyes" reflectors on the road to mark the curves. The only illumination were the car lights and the stars above, which I enjoyed getting a good look at for the first time since I'd left Winnipeg in February.

We stopped for a late night supper at A&W fast food joint, which apparently make the best burgers in Canada and definitely the best root beer. Laura and I were the only ones in the restaurant with a couple of trash-makeup bored teens working there at about 9.30 pm. I was tired enough to ask Laura "What is root beer made out of?" Her lightening-fast comeback "Roots" and the two of us going into hysterics in front of the Osborne teenagers who worked there. However, it did merit a phone call to Laura's mum in Texas to ask, and she did not have a more comprehensive answer either, so maybe it's not such a silly question. Reader, if you can name the makings of root beer without researching it on Wikipedia, I may just have to think up a post-a-ble prize to send you.

Having passed Medicine Hat and realising we were not going to make it as far as Swift Current (SK) by that evening, we settled for crossing the border for a village called Gull Lake. There we found the one family run motel- the Lazy Dee to settle in for the night. The Lazy Dee was a drive-in motel, with a clanker of a heater, two double beds, clean facilities and a decent lock on the door. We were set. We checked in, walked into the field across the road to check out the stars, winking over the numerous tractors and train lines, I gave Laura some coaching on talking in an Aussie accent (she's a shocker) and we went to bed.

I feel somewhat strange after that first night of sharing a room with Laura. Not because we shared a room (which we did) or because I forgot my toothbrush and ended up using one of those disposable finger covers which doesn't quite do the job. No, it was because the shape and state of my pyjamaed bottom was objectively assessed by my best friend here and has since been reported amongst our mutual friends. Fortunately my unsuspecting and half-asleep bum passed whatever North American test of proportion, applied by Laura that next morning but it was both flattering and disconcerting to be informed later by my other friends that I was apparently in alright shape. For the record, Laura is straight.

Somewhere along the way to Swift Current I forgave Laura for waking me up before 7am and putting me in the driver's seat for my first experience ever of driving in the left side of the car on the right side of the road. This was without so much as a cup of English breakfast to moisten my tired brain cells. I was promised breakfast later, which I got as a reward for not killing either of us on the road. The logic was that on a dual carriage highway on a straight road on flat ground, I couldn't get into too much trouble. I did ok, but my sense of spacial awareness is not good on the road at all and I appreciated the trust that went into putting me in the driver's seat.

We made it to Rolleau, the village where Corner Gas is shot by 11 am the Saturday morning on a clear sunny day ahead of all the other tourists. Certainly from Housten and Waco in Texas and Wagga and Canberra in Australia, we'd travelled the furthest.

I've linked a new web album for the weekend. The sky doesn't get much bigger than out there.