Ok. You'll have to wait a bit longer for photos
and such. My computer at home is on the
fritz. Just fixed it tonite.

On Saturday, we left Regina, heading East,
looking for this ranch.
We stopped in Moose Jaw for some gas and
as far as I could tell, it was a quaint little
town with a couple of tourist attractions.
Namely, its' mineral spa (all natural) and its'
tunnels. Though we just passed through
momentarily, it seemed like a nice little
town, a place I wouldn't mind spending some
time in. I'll have to go back.

Then onto Swift Current, approx. 3 hours
away from Regina going East.
Now, it seems, I've discovered the reservoir
of hickish retardation that Regina draws from.
Swift Current residents aren't too swift.
More on that later.

Then we headed north, passing through
a dry and desolate terrain that has more in
common with Montana than the rest of
Saskatchewan.
About half an hour from our destination, the
car decides to break down with no hope of
ever starting up again.

So there we were, stuck in the middle of nowhere.
On the side of a highway. Parked on the brush.
Popping open the hood. Desperately trying to
restart the car, checking the oil, fanning air onto
the engine. No deal.
It starts but then it dies. We have no idea why.
Right about now, it's 36 degrees on an open plain.
We look on the map. We were stuck on a stretch
of highway between two small towns that probably
didn't have much service anyways and the last
major town was Swift Current, which was half an
hour away by car. And there was spotty analog
cell phone service.

Two guys pulled up in a very shiny white pick up
truck and offered us a ride to the
small town we were heading toward.
We refused. They were freaky and small towns
don't have much in terms of service around here.

Five minutes later, two nice girls in a black Mustang
came up and offered to help.
Luckily, people on the road here can be really friendly
when you're in a jam like this one.

The girls, Amy and Nicole, offered to drive us back
to Swift Current, even though they were heading in the
other direction! That's how nice Saskatchewan people
generally are. Most of them, that is.

On the ride over, they played one of Chris Sheppard's
tapes or CDs which helped cool us down.
Thanks alot Amy and Nicole! Youse guys are the best!

Now, that we were back in Swift ( as the locals like to call it).
We had to chill out until we could catch the bus back to
Regina. So we hung out at the "Smitty's" attached to the
Esso station on the outskirts of town drinking rye and
gingers while we waited for the tow truck to pick up
the car.

After leaving the car at Canadian Tire to be fixed,
we took a cab to the bus station. The cabbie was
really nice and told us that there was too much
competition as a cabbie in Swift as there are
14 cabs!

The bus station was tiny, with a really smelly cafeteria.
It was smelly because the guy who ran it just cleaned the
place it smelled of disinfectant. Little did we know that
he would be cooking our eggs and waffles!
The place was populated by really strange and trashy
people that I assumed were locals.
One guy was really fat. But his head was really small.
His wife had a problem of some sort. But they kept
staring at us.

Then came more trash.
A bleah blonde mother came in with her kid and neice.
The neice was probably twelve and had t-shirt on that
said "Bite Me" on it.
The little kid was rambunctious and had a longish girl
mullet and wanted to climb all over the place.
The mom was total mean trashy mom. She kept telling
her kid to "Sit down and shaddup!", "I said No!", "Get over here!".

I really, really feel sorry for the kids here. They just wanna
be kids and their parents have no right to be parents.
We went out to the waiting area for the busses.
It smelled of more disinfectant.
The bus comes from Vancouver and goes to Toronto.
If we stayed on, we'd be home in 30 odd hours.

More trash in the lobby. This woman, who I swear I've
seen backstage at the Van Halen 1984 tour and looks
like a total Scarberian (South Rocker) kept asking me
if I was going West. And then she asked me if we were
going to the states. She had a look of pure fucked up
ness that it wasn't even funny any more.

How depressing.

Another image:

Bus comes, woman gets out with baby.
Sits on the asphalt with baby, lets baby sit
on the asphalt. Woman smokes cigarette.
Baby is cute, Woman is trash.

C'mon, don't let your baby sit on the ground.

>>Bus is really crowded and tight.
However, it's not rowdy, which is what I
expected. Since it's quite late, most people
are trying to sleep. That's good, cause that 's
all we're trying to do, after such a crazy day.

So:
Moose Jaw: quaint.
Swift Current: not so.

Lesson learned:
Drive better cars.
Invest in GPS
and satelite phone.
Have private helicopter fleet always
at the ready.
Don't drink the water in Swift Current.

On the way into Swift Current, there was a
huge billboard put up by the Pro-life Association:

"Saving Saskatchewan's Number One Resource:
People!"