A full day in Saskatchewan. I love Saskatchewan! Big skies, yellow fields, and small friendly towns.

We knew Cecilia’s cousin Nellie and her husband Gary were heading towards us in Saskatoon, so after breakfast and getting gas, Cecilia and Nellie were busy texting each other plotting where we could meet up for a bit.

We found them in a gravel parking in a tiny town!

We had a nice catch up before heading east, while they were off towards Edmonton.

We knew we wanted to visit with Mary and Nellie’s sister Anne in Yorkton too so we planned on driving a shorter distance today. But we filled our day with birdwatching and exploration around the Quill Lakes. Mud Lake in particular.

It was SO incredibly windy again today. We spent a couple of hours on a gravel road with the salty water lapping right along side it, on both sides! There was a guy busy in an excavator building up the rock shore to further protect the road from the erosion.

We saw so many birds! Mostly geese and ducks. I learned how to identify a bunch of new species!

We spotted a flock of pelicans fly in. Totally amazing!! They were wing tip to wing tip. One would flap its wings, then the next one, like they were doing the wave, all the way down the row, then coast together. Totally amazing!

So many bugs!

On our way back to the Trans Canada Highway, Cecilia finally wanted to solve the mystery of the super dark and dry crop we saw being harvested. Canola! These are rapeseeds! We didn’t recognize the crop without the yellow flowers!

I was really delighted that we found the O’Dell Picnic Grounds roadside stop that I discovered on my solo drive last year. Only the dedication sign is gone! I hope it was theft and that it is just getting cleaned up.

We pulled off in Theodore too to take a picture of the grain elevator, especially because that was Grandpa’s middle name.

Tonight Cecilia’s cousin Anne had us over for dinner. We chatted for hours! It was a great evening!

Now we are back in our hotel reviewing our bird lists and plotting out tomorrow.