Day 8 – Canada: Eating The Dust

Eating the Dust

At 11:00am, we arrived at the historical site Fort Battleford. It was really neat ’cause we had a tour guide tell us the history of the Fort and the Royal Mounties as she showed us some replicas and some actual artifacts from that time and area. My brothers were really excited though about the gun display they did inside the actual fort and later the canon demonstration.
The youngest three boys all got to try on some Mountie costumes for a picture as well. Despite the fact that it was pretty cold weather outside, we really enjoyed the whole experience! It also helped that since mom had gone into the Motorhome early, we were able to enjoy a nice warm lunch of rice and curry.
After about two hours at the fort, we set out for the crooked trees. We were all pretty excited because these were supposed to be one of the seven wonders of Canada. When we got there, we were amazed! On one half of the little parking lot, all the trees were straight. On the other side however, they were growing every which way! Even the little trees just starting to grow were going all crazy!

We were all pretty exhausted after our long day, so most of the kids just settled down with a book while I continued tutoring Orin and Eli. We were cut short though when, suddenly our Motorhome was filled with a thick fog of dust! The road we were driving on was so dusty that it was all kicking up into the moterhome. When we noticed this, we quickly closed all the windows, but it made no difference.
When we finally stopped to see what was going on, we were horrified to discover that the floor near the back of the RV, coming through the door in the bathroom, was a brown layer of dust! We tried cleaning it up as best we could, but decided that, since we had quite a bit more driving on this dusty road, we would save the rest for later.
After finally coming to the end of the long road and finally finding a place to stop, we surveyed the situation. It was horrible! What got it the worst was the bathroom. Everything was covered in a centimeter of the brown dust.
So, mom and dad handed out the wet cloths. There was dust on the dashboard, dust in the blankets, dust in the play pen, dust on the walls, pretty much everywhere! We found that the dust had come through a hole that was made for the plumbing right under the back wheel! We’ll have to get that fixed! It took us about four hours cleaning it out. We are going to have to find a vacuum tomorrow. We have all agreed on this one point though: No matter how amazing the attraction is, NO DUSTY ROADS!