Pleasant Prairie Days

Well today went perfectly as planned, which was a nice change of pace over the last few days. We started the day at our hotel and usually I don't mention the continental breakfast that most of these places have because they're pretty bland. For a continental breakfast you can usually expect some kind of cereal, some toast, maybe some bagels. If you're in a two star set up you might even have more than one type of bagels and some muffins.

However this place, the Days Inn in Regina had the option to make your own breakfast sandwich. That's right they had friggin' English Muffins, a heated tray with egg patties and sausage patties, it was amazing. I still only had one but it was a great way to start the day. I'd definitely recommend a stay at the Days Inn Regina if you're there for a few days and want to spend more than a rate that would get you a bed bug infested room but not so much you have to remortgage your house just to stay for a week.

The goal was to go from Regina to Winnipeg, which is about 600 km. Normally that wouldn't be too bad but you lose an hour going over the Saskatchewan-Manitoba border so it is like driving 700km. We were hoping to stop over at the Spirit Sands Park (The mini-desert mentioned in the blog posts a ways back) and check out the Artillery Museum in Shilo, MB. Unfortunately the park was no longer underwater, but it was still closed to visitors as they waited for it to drain out. Apparently there was so much water they were afraid the whole area would turn to quicksand for a while, and they didn't want to take any risks. While neither did we so we just kept on going.

We did get a chance to stop over at the Artillery Museum in Shilo and that was a pretty awesome time. It was neat because unlike other museums this one was in a working CFB so you got to see modern day military stuff going on while you explored the past. The Canadian Artillery Regiment is based there so it makes sense the museum was set up there. Many pieces that all saw active service were housed there so it really gave you a connection to the past. They had tiny 6 pound guns that would have been shipped over from Britain and France to see service in the colonial periods, to great big howitzers that saw use up to as recently the 80's.

The some of the artillery pieces had little diorama's set up to show how they may have been used in action. For the little 6 pounder it would be more impressive if I hadn't lived near the Citadel for five years to see what they actually looked like in action.

Unfortunately for all you internet denizens, this is not some sort of rule 34 request involving 18th century cannons 

Inside the building they also had a very concise military history of Canada that I really enjoyed. It basically took the 5 hour experience that was the Museum of War and distilled it into a 20 minute walk through. It wasn't as graphically pleasing (No pictures) but it got the job done. If you're any fan of military history I would recommend taking the inside tour for the $5 charge.

The outside of the building also housed some larger artillery pieces that wouldn't fit inside the building. They were a little more worn but they gave you a better idea of what they might have looked like when they were in service. The collection also allowed you to see the evolution of artillery over the generations of war. You start out with the little cannons up there and they got bigger and bigger until World War One when they were really big. Then in World War Two mobility was more of an issue so you started seeing them get smaller but still more powerful until you ended up with this:

I'm sure some people wish they had one of these strapped to their car during rush hour!

They even had a rocket truck in their yard. I didn't think Canada ever had any of these but apparently they made up the missile deterrent defence that replaced the Avro Arrow. I think we sort of lost points for gracefulness in that trade off:

Put a Nuclear Missile on something that just about anyone could hijack? Seems like a good idea to me!

That was pretty much it for the day. The rest of it was spent driving to Winnipeg. Tomorrow we visit the Mint and make our way back to Ontario. If there is no post for tomorrow, it's because we got arrested for Geoff trying to steal gold bullion, and need someone to come bail us out!