Greetings from Mountain Time! I had a friend from Denver who always said Mountain was the forgotten time zone. He may have been right: we forgot about the hour time difference until we saw the time on a bank sign.
On the way out of Swift Current, the highway was a bit slippery, not from recent snow, but from compacted snow and ice that hadn't been cleared. We saw a few trucks in the median that had slipped off the road; we did have to drive a bit more carefully, but nothing scary.
The land looked more like ranch and grazing land than farmland, and we did see a lot of cows and some buffalo. I'm glad to see them out eating grass the way they should be. I spotted a few animal crossings, the tunnels built under highways. The land was also less flat, with low, rolling hills, but still unbroken to the horizon. There were looong stretches without a town in sight.
We listened to more Dortmunder -- we're both getting a little bored and want the book to end soon -- and coordinated the airport pickup and a U-Haul issue with M. An engine light is on, and although the truck is driving fine, we want to get it sorted before driving into the mountains. U-Haul is supposed to have roadside assistance.
Speaking of "supposed to have," I was unsurprised to learn that the "third stay free" Super 8 promotion is pretty much a bait-and-switch. It's a program through the parent company, Wyndham, and the front desk person at the Calgary Super 8 didn't know anything about it. After some discussion, we checked in in the usual way, then once in the room, I poked around the Wyndham Rewards website.
Yes, we are earning points for these stays, but they aren't credited right away, and they have an expiry date. In other words, the program is worthless. I plan to complain, only because I think companies should hear from us (all of us), but I know it will do absolutely no good. Luckily the Super 8s have been fine, actually pretty nice, and the rates have been good.
While I'm complaining about hotels, here's my recurring complaint about the supposed green policies at most hotels. Reusing towels or sleeping on the same sheets two nights in a row are logical actions to take -- except that those actions end up cutting hours for underpaid hotel workers. Meanwhile, the hotels are using disposal cups in all the rooms. Even worse, many of the in-room coffee makers use disposable filter holders -- instead of putting the filter pack in a tray that's part of the coffee maker, the filter pack comes with its own single-use tray. It's incredibly wasteful. And of course there are the little bottles of shampoo and other hygiene products. We've stayed in hotels with good environmental practices, I know it's possible to do. It's not green to push more families into poverty and to increase income inequality.
My former co-workers and union team will be interested to hear there was a strong scented air "freshener" in our room when we got in. I'm one of the people who benefited from the City of Mississauga's scent-free workplace policy, and several times had to deal with violations, both as a supervisor and a sufferer. We were in our room for about 30 seconds when I started coughing violently. Allan got rid of the scent thingies and I opened a window, and avoided a full-scale asthma attack. I will definitely mention it to the manager on our way out.
The room is much nicer than I expected for the price, once I was able to breathe.
I got Diego settled, M dealt with U-Haul, and Allan picked up SIL from the airport. Diego went absolutely berserk with happiness when he saw SIL -- leaping about, jumping up to kiss her over and over, then barking furiously to try to get SIL to greet him the way he wants -- hands-on. SIL was a bit freaked out; who wouldn't be? Of course, we all knew SIL was coming today, but Diego didn't. To him it was the most amazing and wonderful surprise! Ah, dogs. We are so loving traveling with him.
The hotel is in the middle of big shopping area -- it looks exactly like Mississauga -- so we went down the street to an East Side Mario's for dinner. (Non-Canadian readers, that's Canada's version of The Olive Garden.) After dinner all three of us went to M/SIL's room to drink wine, but SIL and I quickly conked out. I've been getting up ridiculously early every day; my brain is still on Eastern time.
Today, the mountains! There's no snow in the forecast and we're closing in on the end of the journey. Thanks for coming along. It's fun to know that friends are following our progress.
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