Day 9: Winnipeg to Neepawa, July 9

We started the day at Dalnavert House, an 1895 house in downtown Winnipeg that was owned by the only son of Sir John A Macdonald, and has been restored to its early glory. I like any old house, but this was particularly good; we had a personal guided tour by a young man who clearly knew his stuff and loved the house too.

Afterwards Mike walked around the Forks while Will and I checked out the Crafts Museum. It was smaller than we expected - just one room - and had an exhibit on recycling in crafts, which wasn't the kind of thing I'd hoped to see. Their "Try Me" activities for kids were excellent, though, and Will and I did some weaving and carding, and learned about finger-weaving and a few other crafts.

We met up with Mike's friend Billy for lunch, at the very posh Palm Room at the lovingly restored Fort Garry Hotel. The food was excellent, and not terribly expensive by Toronto standards. Winnipeg has an astounding 12 entries in Where to Eat in Canada, and I was wishing we had time to try them all.

After lunch we went to the Costume Museum, which was a bit of a bust. Only one gallery of three was open, so it only took a few minutes to see everything. It was an exhibit of wedding gowns, and I was a bit taken aback to see the curator's wedding dress in the exhibit. It seemed to be run by a handful of young women who were interested in fashion, (or at least in being fashionable), but with no interest or knowledge of curating a museum.

On our way out of town we stopped at Canadian Tire for a new battery for the fridge, since the one that was in the bus never lasted very long at a time. We needed a new taillight bulb to replace one that was out, too. Some ice cream entered the picture around this time, which tided us over to dinner at the Lions campground in Neepawa.