This morning Jason and I wanted to see if we could run to Deadwood.
It was super hot out there and it was hard!
You can see by my splits that I was doing really good at first but then the heat started getting to me.
My goal was to get to 13k but I just couldn't do it - I ended up running to where the pavement ended in Deadwood and called it good.
Still got 12.13k in which is my longest run to date so I'll take it.
We had made plans with Jason's parents to come pick us up and thought we could just start walking back in that direction and meet them but I was feeling a bit wobbly and just needed to sit in the shade.
Luckily there was a park right there with a gazebo so we sat and rested until his parents came for us.
I even got to test out the swings a bit before they got there.
His mom brought us waters and I think I guzzled mine in one gulp!
These are the running shorts I picked up yesterday.
They are a bit on the tight side but good for running in.
I never would have imagined myself ever running in shorts but I was sure grateful for them today!
Back view.
We discovered a new salad kit yesterday in Manning so we got it to try.
Had it for lunch today.
It was ok, the dressing was on the sweet side.
Jason had put a brisket in the clay oven overnight and it cooked with the residual heat in there.
He thought he'd overcooked it but I thought it was perfect!
We had that for lunch along with the salad kit and some bread Jason also cooked in the clay oven with locally milled flour.
The bread was amazing!
Also had a slice of the gingerbread cake for desert.
OMG - I just love this cake.
To be honest, I had a slice and a half!
After lunch we decided to go for a drive.
We stopped at the Snack Shack in Manning for ice creams. - I'd never been there before.
They had some gorgeous flower pots hanging in their deck area.
I got a hard ice cream - mint chocolate chip.
Jason had a skor blizzard.
We sat out on the patio to eat it.
So good!
Then we took a trip to check out Notikewin Provincial Park which was about an hours drive away.
It's where the Notikewin River and the Peace River meet up.
It was pretty and there wasn't a soul around.
I had hoped that we would be able to go swimming but the water looked too dirty for me.
We did walk along the beach and explore a bit.
We did take our shoes off and at least put our toes in the water.
It was very scenic.
The beach had some really nice sandy areas, some rocky areas then also some mucky areas.
Lots of footprints.
We thought these might be from a bear - Jason's mom figures it was a canine of some sort - dog or wolf perhaps.
Walking back up to where we'd parked the car.
We had brought the bikes thinking we could maybe ride some trails but it wasn't really suitable for that.
There was a campground - we drove through it and it was pretty but not a soul was camping there.
You could get to the Notikewin River from the campground - it also was not suitable for swimming unfortunately.
The amount of horseflies flying around was kind of shocking.
Way too many bugs for me.
So we didn't stick around long.
Saw a pretty Alberta rose on the way back to the car.
Lots of big giant birch trees in the park which Jason found impressive.
We had to drive through farm country to get to the park then on the way back out again.
So it felt kind of remote but also pretty.
Look at that sunshine just beating down.
Neat sign we saw in the middle of nowhere.
When we got back to Manning, we decided to go for a bike ride there.
We were finding a place to park and get our bikes out when we happened upon this little fellow on the side of the road.
He was all alone and completely terrified.
So we stopped and tried to get in touch with Fish & Wildlife.
They were closed so we called Jason's mom who looked up the Fish & Wildlife Officers home number for us.
We called and he was actually out of the country but his wife told us that mom was likely nearby so to just leave the baby and she'd be back.
We felt so bad just leaving him but we didn't have much choice.
He tucked himself in so he was really hard to see which made us feel a bit better.
So we went off on our bike ride around Manning.
It's actually quite a pretty little town.
We saw these teacup planters made from old tires which I thought were so cute.
Some people are just so creative.
We biked all over the place, ended up doing just over 11k.
We did check on baby deer when we got back to the car and he was still there all tucked into his little hiding place.
I sur hope mom comes back for him.
The bikes were super dirty from all the dirt roads we went down today so we stopped at the car wash to give them a spray down.
Jason did the spraying and I tried to position myself so that I would get sprayed a bit.
I was hot and longing for a swim but we didn't really find a place to do that.
We did end up seeing some folks swimming in the Notikewin River right in Manning which I had thought looked so dirty earlier.
It was so late and we still hadn't eaten so we headed back to Jason's parents for supper but at least we know for next time.
We had leftovers for supper and hit the hay not too much later.
Jasion saw this on the way out to Notikewin Park today - he always notices neat things like this.
That's all for today, until next time, be happy!
