We are on the Trans Canada Highway 1 heading East out of Swift Current and we see these oddly stacked bales of hay. We wonder why they are stacked like this. The speed limit is 110 km/hr so we are motoring along nicely.
That is until we came upon this large obstacle. I am surprised that there is not an escort vehicle, or any placards stating “wide load”, not even any flashing lights. He is doing 120 km/hr, which is way too fast for towing something like that. I just want to get around him before that thing falls off and blocks the whole highway. As I approached he pulled over enough to let me by. On closer examination we still could not figure out what he was towing.
We drove along the shores of Reed Lake SK. We saw this large lake and the Reed Lake Grain Elevator when we were heading West several weeks ago. We are re-tracing our route as we head back East.
Reed Lake is a saline lake and we saw piles of sodium sulphate along the shore of the lake. Sodium sulphate is basically sulphuric acid, so I guess we won’t be bothering to stop for a swim.
We arrived in Moose Jaw SK around noon and we are going to take a break from driving and visit “The Tunnels of Moose Jaw”. These tunnels are beneath the streets and buildings of downtown Moose Jaw. There are two tours you can take. One is Passage to Fortune and the other one is The Chicago Connection.
We chose the Chicago Connection tour.
We were told no still photography and no videos, so there are no photos of this tour. Basically, as they tell the story, Al Capone the notorious gangster hid out in Moose Jaw and used these underground tunnels as his base of operation when things got too hot and heavy in Chicago. We were shown Al’s office and his base of operation for the production of liquor that he then shipped back to Chicago using bootleggers during prohibition. I have probably said too much already, because we were strictly told that what we see, what we hear, and what we smell, we can never tell anyone about this visit to the underground tunnels of Moose Jaw. In fact we were told to “Fuhgeddaboutit” if you know what I mean. I guess this also explains the rule of no photography or videos.. just forget everything that happened during the last hour down in the tunnels.
Personally, I believe the whole story is fictional. I have googled Al Capone and I cannot find any record of him ever being in Moose Jaw. I tend to believe that the tunnels were constructed back in the early days of Moose Jaw when the buildings were heated by steam and these are the access tunnels so that the workers could maintain the heating system and move around between the buildings to perform the heating and piping maintenance that was required for a steam heat system. That’s my theory of the use and construction of the tunnels. The Al Capone story seems a bit far fetched to me.
Back up out of the tunnels, Karen went in search of a few of the Moose Jaw murals.
We leave Moose Jaw behind and soon we see the City of Regina skyline off to the North of us. We are staying the evening in Regina.
Our hotel is in Downtown Regina. My impressions of Regina are not that great after driving into the downtown core and checking into our hotel. The area is a little questionable, but the hotel is fine, it is a Wingate by Wyndam and we won’t be going off the property. Lots of sirens and street noises. Oh well, it’s only one night.
To see all of our photos from today, you can find them on our FLICKR site.
The object on the trailer is the top cone for a steel grain bin. You see lots of these in Sask. The stories about Al Capone and Moose Jaw are for real actually. At least that is what we have always been told. I grew up in Sask....but who knows. Your impression of Regina is pretty right on. It is one of my least favorite cities.
ReplyDeleteThanks Cher for your update.
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