Salutations de Winnipeg Greetings from Winnipeg

 Winnipeg, MB

Me and Francis in front of Grass Lake at Maplewood State Park in Minnesota

Camping in Minnesota

Yesterday we left Minneapolis and drove for about 4 hours roughly up I-94 with a few diversions for additional counties.  We made a few stops along the way to stretch our legs and we stopped by Culver's for a Burger.  We have heard a lot about Culver's on the pinball streams I have been watching (they take place in Green Bay WI) so we thought we would try a regional burger chain.  The burgers were very good but not In and Out good.  When we arrived at Maplewood State Park check in went smoothly.  The campsite was great.  I am glad we booked it because the campgrounds was pretty full.  

The rest stops were clean and nice

We both had a burger and we split a chili cheese fries.

Francis loves Culver's,

This was a the wackiest dog walking area sign that I we have seen.

The sunset over Grass Lake was a lot nicer than it looks here.

Morning pour over was fantastic as usual.

Canada!

We packed up after our coffee and headed north to Canada.  We started getting excited when we started seeing mileage signs that had just said, "Canada" for the last listing.  We took US 59 all the way up grabbing counties as we went.  We stopped by one of the only burger places on our rout and had lunch.  We got to the border at around 4pm.  The port of entry on US 59 is open from 8am to 10pm so we were good.  I guess if we wanted to enter during off hours we would have had to head over to the main highway.  We were the only car entering so they took their time with us. We answered a bunch of questions and then pulled over to a parking spot while they scanned our passports and verified Francis' rabies vaccination.  After about 5 minutes of being parked they brought back our paperwork and told us to have a nice stay.  There was a cool "Welcome to Manitoba" sign just past the port of entry but I was too intimidated to stop and take a photo.  The entry process was all very formal and felt a little intimidating.  

For the rest of the drive I had to use the tiny red numbers on the speedometer to keep to the KPH speed limit.  The fastest speed we saw was 100 KPH which is 62 MPH.  The drive into Winnipeg was easy.  The biggest thing I noticed is that no one lives anywhere except in or near Winnipeg in this area.  It was very sparsely populated and we saw very few cars until we got close to the city.

Our Airbnb is very nice.  It is a condo in a converted warehouse and is super cool.  Before we booked we verified that the parking garage can handle a 7 ft. van but when we saw the parking garage the sign said 6 ft. 9 in.  This isn't going to work for us.  

Unpacking went smoothly and we found overnight parking.  Donna had a back and forth messages with the Airbnb management group and their tone changed from, "Sorry for the misunderstanding" to "we will refund you X Dollars for the parking spot".  This is quite a bit of progress from where they management group started.  Donna has spent the morning looking for a parking garage and it is not going smoothly.  I am sure we will find a solution but we haven't found one yet.

Finally, Groceries and Cannabis together!  

That's it for today.  We just need to sort out parking and then we will have a wonderful month in Winnipeg!  If you missed Closing Out Minneapolis... For Now check it out.