So if I'm being honest, this was a day I had expected would be completely interesting incident and interesting photography-free. It was seven hours of supposely boring scenery, driven in a straight line, followed by a movie, which I couldn't take pictures of, and then nothing.

What actually came to pass, however, was another beast altogether.

In the morning in Okotoks, I woke up obscenely early simply by virtue of having gone to bed obscenely early, and departed before Amber and Peter were up, and well before any sane person would be up in any case. The early part of the drive was easy, but I could not find a coffee place that wasn't Tim Hortons' to save my life. I eventually folded, and had a breakfast flatbread and coffee in Medicine Hat, just to say I had stopped in a town with as cool a name as Medicine Hat. I also stopped in Moose Jaw for the same reason. My only regret at this point, with regards to funnily-named cities, is that I did not stop at King of Prussia, on my fourth day of the trip. I had also considered making the trip down to Head-smashed-in-buffalo-jump, but couldn't afford the two-hour detour.

I made it into Saskatchewan really early, and decided that I was early enough that I could spare the time for a smaller, less obtrusive detour, to Rouleau, SK. Rouleau is a tiny town along highway 39 to the southwest of Regina, and it is known for absolutely nothing. The tiny gas station at the edge of town, however, is well known as Dog River, the set for the TV show Corner Gas. In fact, the grain storage facility across the road from the set still has "Dog River" painted on it. The water storage tower, unfortunately, does not have "Grad 68" painted on it, as that was apparently added in post-production. Getting photos of the set was cool, but learning that I could not actually get gas there was less cool, since I was running on empty at that point. Luckily, there was a small gas station just down the road. The cashier wasn't as funny, though, and I don't know if a show called "XTR gas" would have taken off as much as Corner Gas did.

Coming out of the parking lot of XTR gas, however, I found myself a victim of what is, apparently, a fairly common occurence for drivers out here, which is to say my windshield got cracked by a piece of gravel thrown up by a passing truck. You can see a shot in the album for today, it's a small crack, and will probably be repaired by the time you read this, but I assure you, it was real for some eighteen hours.

I phoned my gracious hosts for the evening, Amber's folks, who had a house in the north of Regina, and they told me of a glass repair place on Albert, which I promptly took the car to, and made an appointment for tomorrow morning. Conveniently enough, the house where my mother grew up in the late 60's/early 70's was on the same road, so I made a quick stop to take some pictures. I tried to get inside, and talk to the folks who currently own the house, but they weren't there when I arrived.

The plan for the evening was to drop my stuff off at my home base for the evening, head out for supper with a couple of friends and go see the Rifftrax Live! showing at the Southland Mall at 7. I arrived at the house around 4:30, and immediately took a shower, to get ready.

Now over the past three and a half weeks, I have showered nightly, or more frequently, if you include swims after pool dips. I have been in hotels where the shower head is so low I have to crouch to get my hair wet. I have been in olde-stylee clawfoot baths with no actual showerhead to speak of, just the equivalent of a spout. So arriving here and having the shower be a nice removable-head deal with adjustable spray, and a bathmat for stability was extremely nice to find.

What I had not counted on, however, was my own absent-mindedness. As I pondered how long it had been since I had been in a nice shower (Answer: probably since Kansas City,) my mind slipped, followed by my foot. I managed to catch myself on my ass, but not after putting my knee through two tiles, and cutting myself rather badly. Mind you, this is within fifteen minutes of arriving at my hosts' place, and after I had done my utmost to assure them that they wouldn't notice my presence at all, that I would be as quiet as a mouse.

In any case, with shame and embarassment, I cleaned up my mess, went down to apologize and ask sheepishly for a bandaid and some ozonol, and whether or not I should take myself to the hospital to get stitched up. I decided against it, and after some extremely gracious aid from my hosts, who have been nothing but understanding about the whole issue, I proceeded to supper and the movie.

Supper was simple, we just ate in the food court, and had a good time. I don't know most of the folks I had supper with, but they are all friends of my old friend Marc. We had a good time, and went off to the theatre for the Rifftrax presentation of Starship Troopers. Having never actually see the movie before, I was surprised at how much I had managed to pick up through osmosis, and had a wonderful time. Listening to the riff was outstanding, and as funny as anything I've ever watched of theirs.

So now I'm headed to bed, after a more-eventful-than-I-had-planned day, to wake up early-ish tomorrow to take in the windshield to be repaired. I have to make a call to my insurance company to see whether or not it's covered, but I'll likely be on the road tomorrow sometime midmorning to head for Winnipeg, where I will meet Jon, and we will go see a Bombers game.

I will also feel plenty of shame at my lack of balance tomorrow, but I think that goes without saying.

Cheers!