I had a great day today.  The sun was out, the temperatures were pleasant and we stopped to see some interesting things.  And….I took lots of pictures.

We left Estevan and headed east with a slight detour south to go to Roche Perceé.  The site is historically important to Saskatchewan First Nations people and was it was very interesting to see all the formations the sandstone had been carved into by the wind and water over the centuries.  You can see where the name comes from – pierced rock indeed. We made a short stop at the old Jewish Cemetary between Bienfait and Frobisher.

  There was a cache hidden amidst the rocks of this huge Canadian Flag that a fellow placed here several years ago.  We looked for it for a little while but previous log posts indicated it was a hard find so we didn’t take too much time before we moved on.  I hate weeding but I really wanted to clean this up. We crossed the border into Manitoba and picked up a cache before we reached the border.  One of the reasons we drove this far east before going south was so we could go to the International Peace Garden that is on the border between Manitoba and North Dakota.  The land was granted by the USA and Canada in 1931 and the center of the garden literally straddles the border. It is a mile and a half walk down the garden to the Peace Chapel at the end. The Peace Chapel had quotes from famous statesmen or writers carved into the Tyndell stone walls. There was a 9/11 Memorial that contained some of the girders of the World Trade Center. The most fun was the Conservatory where there was a huge collection of succulents and cacti – over 6,000 of them.  There were so many shapes and colours.  I loved it.  I have included lots of photos of the most interesting ones, but believe me I took a lot more pictures than I have posted here. After we completed the walk up and down the middle we took the two short drives around the perimeter of the park – 3 1/2 miles on the Canadian side and 3 1/2 miles on the American side.  There is a marker placed right on the 49th Parallel and you can see the clear cut marking the border going off in the distance.

Our last stop was in a little town just south of the border called Dunseith.  A fellow built this two-story turtle out of wheel rims. There are over 2000 of them – and a cache, too. We arrived in Rugby, ND – the geographical center of North America about 6:30 Manitoba time and checked into our hotel for the night. As I said at the beginning of this post; it was a great day.