JX2 ADVENTURES

2 days ago, we left our campground after a night of rainy camping, once again.  It took us a while to get our stuff packed up because it started raining about 7 am.  Once we got rolling, we could see big storms in the distance.  We were able to skirt several of them, but finally were caught by a big one.  The rain was in sheets with gusting winds that were at least 40 mph.  We had our rain gear on but at some point, everything was drenched.  We stopped and dried off and another storm was coming our way.  So, after 250 miles of mostly misery, we stopped at this little village, Kenaston.  There was one “hotel”, which was $40.  The first room they put us in had a large trash can to catch all of the water from the gaping hole in the ceiling.  We switched rooms to a nice two bedroom that only had a sink… the bathroom was down the hall. 

The next morning I called the postal service to see why our passports had not been delivered to Seattle, where Red Star Travel, our Russian Visa advisors are located.  We shipped the passports to them so they could get our Visas.  Well, I have been nervous all along about mailing my passport and sure enough, my worries proved well founded.  Long story short:  the Canadian post office lost our passports.  They think they will show up at some point but no one knows when or where.   So, now we have to rush to Minneapolis to try to get an emergency passport.  Otherwise, we will not be able to catch our flight to Europe on July 6.  If our original passports don’t show up on Monday or Tuesday, then the Russia portion of our trip will likely be cancelled.  We just don’t have time to start the process over.  Oh well, we will see.  I can’t worry about it anymore.  It is out of my hands.  This is one of those times when you plan as well as you can, and things go wrong that are out of your control. 

I spent several hours, yesterday, on the phone with Canadian postal officials and no results.  I will say that Canadians are extremely nice and have been overly apologetic about their mistake.  They are refunding our postage.

After a morning of fun government red tape, we had a good sunny day, yesterday, and stayed in Estevan, Canada.   Joe decided to stay up late and didn’t go to bed until 8 p.m.  The partying never ends on the “No Looking Back” World Tour.  

This morning, we took off pretty early and spent the whole day running from a big storm.  Apparently, there have been some tornado watches.  We were able to stay out in front of it most of the day.   We are at a hotel tonight in Jamestown, ND , and will ride into Minneapolis tomorrow, which is about 300 miles on the interstate.  The big goal now is to get replacement passports so we can at least go to Europe even if Russia is a no go. 

The last week has been pretty tiring.  Trying to cover 300 miles per day and deal with logistics and the weather is wearing us out.   Fortunately, we will have a few days off in Minneapolis, while our bikes are getting tires.  Also, we are going to cruise the Mall of America. 

Most of the Canada portion of our trip is over.   I will miss the people there.  The one great asset of Canada is its people.  I did not run into a single rude or annoying person.  Everyone was extremely nice and overly interested in our trip.  It seems the citizens of Canada are a very adventurous people.  I think Joe talked to half of the country.  It is however very expensive.  We are glad to get back to reasonable prices, especially for gas. 

We have now been gone three weeks, and it seems longer.  The days have been running together lately.   I knew this portion of the trip would be difficult, because we have a lot of distance to cover in a relatively short amount of time.  What I didn’t realize was that Alberta and Saskatchewan were like Nebraska and Kansas.  Relatively flat with lots of farms and straight roads.  Snoozeville.

Once  we get to Minneapolis, we will update everything and have all of the pictures posted.  Until then, wish us luck .

 

Jim