Staying Hydrated Without Dying 101 [North Battleford]

Tuesday, August 12th-Friday, August 15th

I will be entirely honest with whomever may be reading this.  We have faced our share of difficult and challenging obstacles over the past 2ish months, but any inclination to believe that the worst was in the past dissipated upon setting up shop in North Battleford, Saskatchewan.  I really have tried my best to never “knock” a city, or speak-ill of it, but I am having a tough time thinking of redeeming qualities of North Battleford.  The first startling feature was the fairgrounds themselves, which were “shabby” to say the least, sticking us on pavement right up against a looming building.  One optimistic thing I can think of ,I suppose, is that the shade from the building was appreciated on the days we nearly hit 40 degrees.  Yeah.  Those days sucked.  Besides being constantly drenched in sweat, another real bummer about the heat was that the attendance to the fair was minimal.  And Boots the cat was too hot and bothered to want to move.  I identified with his feelings immensely.

To add on to the fun we were having in our new locale, a “boil-water” advisory was issued for the entire city.  Just what you want to see when you’ve been drinking straight from the hose for two days…  If the tics in Moose Jaw didn’t give us lyme disease, and the mosquitoes in Red Deer didn’t give us west nile, then what were the chances the water in North Battleford would give us dysentery??  Also… What’s the deal with all these western cities having two-part names?  “Bowmanville” is so much simpler.  Like most of our other stops, I did want to sample the local cuisine…  [Of course, no fountain drinks though…  With the advisory and all]…

Maddy & I were also out of a room, because the truck where we slept was in being serviced… Again…  That just meant the four of us got to share one room, hooray!  At least it was cooler at night…

Luckily, we all made it through our time in NB alive, and relatively unscathed!  Take that poison water and heatstroke!  Our next stop was our final stop, and we all knew once thing for certain…  It couldn’t be worse than this.

Logan