Friday August 18, 2006 6:00 am Regina Saskatchewan Sunrise 5:51 Sunset 8:13 Hours of daylight: 14:22 Day 3 of our trip to Virginia
A. Morning Musings
6:00 am There are a few light clouds in the sky at the moment and + 9 C, with a forecast high of + 25 C. It looks like an ideal day. For me this will be a relaxing day visiting a bookstore and having a coffee. Phyllis and Hanna will be immersed in genealogy for much of the day.
Yesterday Gordon drove Hanna and us to Moose Jaw for the day. We took a guided tour of the "tunnels of Moose Jaw", visited a georgeous art gallery where we had lunch and then spent about 3 hours in the Temple gardens Mineral Spa. This is an upscale hot springs, the water being piped about a kilometre from a geothermal outlet. The actual pool is fairly large and indoors but there is also an outlet to a smaller adjoining pool that is hotter and outside on a patio on the 4th floor of the building. It was a very enjoyable way to do nothing. We had dinner in Moose Jaw as well, and returned to Regina about 8 PM where Gordon drove us around Wascana Lake. We caught a beautiful sunset while at the Legislative building.
I looked at the pictures I took yesterday and have added four of the best to yesterday's web page. That gave me the idea of trying to do this for each day of our trip. I have gone back and added 4 pictures from day 1 (August 16). This will also motivate me to take at least a few pictures each day.
B. Plan
Visit the Book and Briar Patch in Regina.
C. Actual/Notes
4:30 PM I dropped Phyllis off at Hanna's and then drove over to the Book and Briar Patch, my favorite bookstore in Regina. I only bought 2 books, but one of them is a real gem: "Atlas of Saskatchewan". This is the single best book I have seen in terms of the variety of high quality charts and diagrams for summarizing and describing the multitude of different ways of looking at a history of an area. Truly spectacular! I also bought a small pocketbook, "One Man's Wilderness" the 26th edition of a 1970's journal of Richard Pronneke's life in the Alaskan wilderness. I had a nice cuppa and browsed through the atlas, then hopped in the car and drove back to Moose Jaw (about 60 km) to have another look at the murals and small shops. I had a good reuben sandwich, and another coffee, for lunch at Coffee Encounters on Main Street, and had the waitress take my picture reading "Citizens" (I have reread chapters 3 - 5 and am ready to make a few notes) . I took a few more photos of the murals in Moose Jaw before driving back to Regina and a second browse through the Book and Briar Patch.
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Moose Jaw architecture |
Moose Jaw architecture |
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Coffee Encounters (right hand shop) |
Study session @ Coffee Encounters |
The second visit resulted in two more books. I was looking for a couple of books by Rousseau in the Literature section with no success. But then I noticed "The Figaro Trilogy" by Beaumarchais which had been repeatedly mentioned in "Citizens". Once again, I luck out. I then spotted a small softcover history book, "In Palliser's Triangle: Living in the Grasslands 1850 - 1930" which covers the period that my grandfather had a homestead in this area.
10:30 PM We are back from a fantastic meal at a steakhouse on the east side of Regina. Hanna drove us there where we met Gordon and we all decided to have the works: soup (Boston seafood chowder) salad (Caesar - superb!), steak (milet mignon - also superb: you could almost cut it with a fork), wine (Mission Hill cabernet, also very good), saskatoon pie (with ice cream) and a Monte Cristo coffee. This is the type of meal one has once every few years.
D. Reflection |