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Ball Diamond "When the One Great Scorer comes to
write against your name, He marks, not that you won or lost,
but how you played the game."
"Camp anywhere," the folks at a store in Asquith offered. "No one will mind." Maybe people understood about touring cyclists after all? It's not as if we can just hop on our bikes and pedal another hundred kilometres down the road to the nearest campground.
The next day, after 160 kilometres, we arrived in Esk - an insignificant hiccup of a prairie town. No gas stations. No restaurants. No grocery stores. Town proper consisted of a cluster of squalid hovels. I asked a passing chap: "Do you think anyone would mind if we camped in that field?" I pointed to an unkempt parcel yonder, yellowed grass thigh-high. "Ball diamond," he corrected. Whatever. We camped at the 'ball diamond' - somewhere beyond shortstop I suspect - six feet from several gopher holes, twenty feet from a derelict railway track. The tent had been set up and our gear unloaded for less than ten minutes when I heard a train whistle. "It can't possibly be coming by on that track," I stated. But, sure enough, a couple of minutes later an engineer waved to us as he chugged past, the ground chuddering beneath our feet. I waved back - thoughts of a peaceful slumber derailed. "Free vibrating beds," I said. "Pass the ear plugs," Sharon grumbled.
During the night, two freight trains rumbled past. When the first passed, the ground shook so violently I clung to the side of my ground pad in fear of falling off. When the second passed, I nearly jumped out of my skin. I dreamt I was on the track! From 3 am on, we laid awake, waiting for a nonexistent third train. We arose a couple of hours later, frazzled. We're never camping near train tracks again, Sharon's bloodshot eyes conveyed.
Sunday morning greeted us - the sky such a brilliant blue it hurt our eyes. Blinking, we pedalled into Jansen. If Esk had been a hiccup, then Jansen was a burp. "At least it has stores," Sharon pointed out. "Yes," I replied, "but none are open." Perhaps the sleepy little town snoozed late on Sundays? We wheeled around town, looking for anything showing signs of life. The back door of a restaurant swung open. I ventured over. They weren't open for customers yet a helpful woman told me, but she sold us two litres of milk. We sat at a picnic table and ate a gigantic pancake breakfast in what was once-upon-a-time a school yard ... or it may have been a ball diamond. Back on the road, I noticed we weren't the only ones looking for lunch. Lazy raptors squatted on fence posts - waiting for roadkill. We swam past Big Quill Lake - the first real lake we had seen in Saskatchewan. Other so-called 'lakes' were sloughs, populated with fuzzy cattails and herons pacing amongst lily pads and scummy green algae. Saskatchewan didn't appear the best place to buy lake front property. In a forsaken settlement with dirt streets, we entered a Chinese café. Dusty floral curtains and outdated gold and red embossed wallpaper spoke of prosperous days' past. We ordered a round of egg rolls. "There's little in these time-forgotten prairie towns," I said, "but there's usually a Chinese café on main street." I shoveled in a mouthful of egg roll and gazed out the window. "How do you know you're in small town Saskatchewan?" I asked, snickering. A New Holland combine had arrived and was parallel parking in front of the café. (Across the street, at a tavern, more tractors than cars occupied the parking spaces.) "Yep, no mistaking it," I said, snatching another bite of egg roll. "We're in Saskabush." Chortling, I nearly choked on the minced vegetables. "When you're bad-mouthing farmers," Sharon chastised, "at least have the courtesy not to do it with your mouth full." We departed the coffee shop. Dust swirled down main street. We continued into the wind, dodging tumbleweeds as they bounced across the grassy plains and cut in front of us. Past flowing oceans of golden grain rolling in the wind, we passed the farming community of Mozart where the hamlet's streets are named for the classical composers Schubert, Haydn, Wagner, Gounod, and Liszt. "Look at that," Sharon said, pointing. "Even the street signs have little musical notes on them." Foam Lake (Saskatchewan's answer to real lakes?) was our next spot of interest with its 6,500 acre marsh. A real gem as far as prairie marshes go - its ideal environment is practically a factory when it comes to breeding ducks. And, every autumn, it turns into a bird watchers' paradise when thousands of geese, ducks, swans, and cranes all congregate for their southern migration. We continued to Sheho (Cree for prairie chicken). We didn't see any grouse, but we did spot our all-time shortest train. The entire string consisted of two locomotives. "Do you have a feeling," I asked, "that someone at the yard yelled at the engineer as he left? 'Bud! Hey Bud! Wait!'" |
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