As I announced last Sunday, I’ve been living in Saskatchewan full time after I fell in love with the province during a road trip. My love hasn’t changed, but when I found out that Winnipeg is just a 6 hour motorcycle ride from Regina I had to spontaneously start a road trip the next morning. Fast forward 2 days later and here I am talking about my amazing trip in Manitoba.
Many motorcycle lovers can relate that at a 6 hour drive is perfect for most trips. It’s just enough time to feel like you’re escaping but also little enough time to not feel like work. After 6 hours of biking down the Trans-Canada Highway I felt refreshed pulling into Winnipeg, or at least I would’ve felt more refreshed if my motorcycle hadn’t been having problems. Funny enough though, when I pulled into the Walmart on McPhillips St I found another road-tripping family that was having problems with their RV and had been camping there in the parking lot for 4 days because of it. I offered a quick gander to see if I could help, but they refused because they were working on an embarrassing solution. Remember that family, because I’ll be bringing them up again during this story.
Ah, I wish there was something beautiful to tell you about how my 2 day trip in Winnipeg evolved next, but adding onto my motorcycle problems I realized I had only brought $200 cash with me for the whole trip and so when I rolled out of the Walmart parking lot I wondered what I could possible do for cheap while still being able to afford a campsite or something for the nights I was staying there. The feeling of being limited was kind of nice, in all honesty though. It made me appreciate my decision to make this trip, and I felt free as a bird.
Of course, I couldn’t enjoy my first night in Winnipeg without some beer, so I went to the Silver Spike Saloon (awesome business name by the way) to spend the first portion of my money on a pint, and to hopefully mingle with some locals who also start drinking before dinner time like me. I met an old couple who recommended KOA campground for an affordable tent site. I took them on their offer and while I was still legally able to drive I rode my motorcycle to the campsite and set up my one-person tent. It always feels good to have your tent set up long before bedtime, so that’s what I did. And of course feeling sleepy I even used it for a quick nap.
I’m realizing this story is starting to get a little unexciting so let me jump to the fun stuff, because I slept well that night and nothing really happened. The next day, waking up from my tent felt amazing. I headed to the nearest Starbucks and decided I would check out some historical sites and museums. If I had friends in Winnipeg of course we’d be drinking at a lake but alas I still enjoyed what I saw exploring on my own. It was when I was stopping at Walmart before heading back to camp that I ran into that family with RV troubles again, however they looked really excited to see me this time.
Their dilemma was that they had a friend over in Springfield, MB who knew how to fix their RV problem but they just didn’t have a means of taking the RV there. It’s only a 40 minute drive but you try saying “Yes” to a family that needs their RV towed for 40 minutes! Towing an RV for 40 minutes isn’t something anyone can just offer to do for free. However, their friend in Springfield had done some calling around, and if I hadn’t pulled into that Walmart when I had I would’ve missed seeing this family again because they already had a tow truck on the way who was willing to give them a super good deal. I’m talking like a generous 70% discount because they were friends of friends. Seeing how happy this solution made this family made me equally as happy for them, and I’ll never forget the name of the towing company that helped them because it was equally as striking. I’ll just let you see for yourself with my hyperlink only so that you can laugh when you see it for the first time like I did! But yes that’s really their business name, lol. I’ll just call them W.T.A.T.T.S. for short.
Now if you’re wondering if meeting this family again was the highlight of my trip, you’d be partly correct only because it made me really happy but you’re actually wrong because otherwise this story wouldn’t be exciting enough to be worth sharing. I’m sharing this story with you on the very same day I got home from my trip all because I was so excited to tell anybody from home about what happened during this next part of my day in Winnipeg.
So, I had what I needed from Walmart in my motorcycle bags, and before leaving the parking lot I decided I’d look up another cool country-themed spot to grab a pint of beer before heading to my campsite. I was on the way to said bar when I saw a car I recognized. It was a small blue Honda from the ’90s, and I’d recognize it anywhere because it was actually me who put that dent into the side of the back passenger door 10 years ago during a rodeo. It belonged to my dearest friend from high school back in when I lived in a different part of Ontario. That car meant more to me than my own motorcycle so of course I had a tear in my eye when I pulled up to holler at the driver during a red light. It was indeed my friend Sarah and we just cackled the moment we saw each other.
What struck me in hindsight of this night with her being amazing is that we listened to nothing but Ozzy Osbourne the whole time. It blows my mind because Ozzy was our favorite when we were in school together, we jammed at so many parties to Crazy Train. This unexpected meet up had just happened earlier this week, and because we were both busy living country lives neither of us knew Ozzy had passed away while we were jamming to his songs all night. Of course, as you can imagine, when driving to Starbucks together the next morning we realized our Spotify playlists had run out of Ozzy songs that we hadn’t already heard a dozen times recently. So naturally as we sipped our coffees in her car we looked up some lesser known Ozzy songs on our phones and instantly saw the terrible news.
RIP Ozzy Osbourne, Sarah and I will always jam to your stuff on road trips! In fact, we promised to meet each other in Winnipeg again next year, on July 22nd, Ozzy’s last day. If no one else in Winnipeg is having an Ozzy cover band show on July 22nd then Sarah and I will at least be having a crappy one at our campsite. You can count on it.