After two weeks in Colorado it was time to go back to Canada. Since I wanted to go to the east coast for the final part of my trip, I decided to spend one more week with my old host family before heading out east. This worked out perfectly, as I got to see Faith, Torrie and Roland once more before they were heading out for a summer exchange to Ontario (Faith) and a road trip to relatives in British Columbia (Torrie and Roland).
A nice bonus was also the fact that I got to spend my birthday with Vic and Bev and the rest of the family. After Vic had sung “Happy birthday” to me, the three of us boarded the car and went over to pick up Bev’s mother, Ada. Then we drove to Michael and Brenda’s place for some grilled hot dogs. Of course Zayne and Ryker used the opportunity to show me around their rooms and the playhouse that Michael is building for them in the forest.
Later on we took the leftovers of my birthday cake over to Crystal and Jose’s place, where we sat on the nice patio for a visit. Victor and Santiago had just written their last exams and were looking forward for the summer holidays. Unfortunately Jose was still out in the fields to finish spraying the crops while the wind was not too strong.
The next day was “Canada Day”, which was celebrated with big parades and fireworks all over the country. This year was even bigger than usual, as Canada was turning 150. However, most of the day I helped Melissa moving from her shared apartment in Lloydminster to her own apartment. Luckily she had also managed to find two guys with a big truck, who were willing to help her on this special day, because I still couldn’t do much with my cracked clavicle.
After dinner I still got the chance to join Todd, Cristina and Sydney at “Bud Miller Park”, where they had different activities going on all day long. After listening to the music of Sam Landell and his drummer, I just sat in my chair and enjoyed doing nothing at all. It was quite rewarding after a full day of moving around. And the best was yet to come – fifteen minutes of fireworks! And even if it was “only” Lloydminster, they had some pretty good fireworks going on!
That day, Vic’s aunt Mary (90) and her husband Tom had arrived from California. There had been some confusion as to when they would arrive, because we had no flight number or anything. As it turned out, they had been driving all the way during the last few days! So the next day, after a crop tour with Vic around the fields, we invited Vic’s sister Karen and her husband Wayne over to join us for supper.
So, once again my week with the Hult’s went by pretty quickly. Before I knew it, I sat in the car with Megan and Tyler, who took me over to Saskatoon. Megan, who had been in my class in high school, told me about their recent trip to Europe, where they had visited Rob with Deandra, both of whom had graduated with us. And we also compared our experiences from the “West Coast Trail”, which Megan had been talked into joining her brothers for the full hike in four days a few years ago.
In Saskatoon I met Whitney and another Rob, who were also part of our graduation class. We spent the next day exploring the city on an extended hike along the “South Saskatchewan River” and through the downtown area, before going out for pizza and the best ice cream in town. The latter one so popular that the average waiting time is about 20 minutes for a scoop of avocado, Guinness or dill pickle ice cream.
