Marathon Number Two

Day three began with a marathon in the rain…a rain which continued the full day.  

Brenda ran the first twenty km alone while the rest of us lingered in camp.  Maddy joined Brenda for the third leg, and Emily joined Brenda for the anchor leg, which took us 42 km closer to Saskatoon for lunch!  Well, lunch was actually en route; Norman is great for that!  And we had a lot of driving to do.  After a quick stop in Saskatoon for fuel, we carried on to Yorkton.  The rain continued and the winds picked up.

The drive between Saskatoon and Yorkton was not what I expected.  The Yellowhead Highway dwindled from the great divided four lane highway to an undivided single lane each direction…the entire four hours to Yorkton!  The day’s weather did not improve but grew worse.  Some great flashes of lightening and terrific winds.  I quite like the wind but not when driving a billboard down a single lane undivided highway!  Each time a transport truck passed in the other direction, it felt like Norman took a backhand.  That, along with the blinding spray, made for an interesting four hours.  The wind and the drama was particularly high as we passed Big Quil Lake.  It seems strange not to look down on a lake nestled in a valley.  This lake appeared more like an ocean beach, complete with whitecaps from the wind.  The flat landscape made a view of the lake elusive as its surfaced aligned with the horizon.  Every so often, with a modest rise in the road, we caught a glimpse of this immense body of water churned up by the wind.  Very cool.

We finally landed in Yorkton, a much smaller town than I had expected, in the late evening.  Norman tucked into a peaceful and forested campground, and we tucked into Norman.