After leaving Cypress Hills and passing through Eastend, our destination was Wood Mountain -- an odd name, since this is one of the few natural grassland preserves in Canada. No trees, but gorgeous biodiversity in plant and wildlife. We wanted to stop at a place near Grasslands National Park--Canada's newest national park.

We arrived at Wood Mountain Regional Park near supper time. We were distracted by an incident that had just occurred (I'll explain that below...), when a man walked...

After we left Cypress Hills Interprovincial Park, we headed east toward the center of the province. This was our hottest day -- 100F. The Jeep fortunately didn't overheat. We stopped briefly at Eastend, the home of Scotty the T-Rex. This area is badlands. The museum housing the dinosaur is amazing to see on the outside, but we didn't have time on this trip to go inside. The museum is built into the side of a hill, so the roof is actually grasslands! It is like the original house of the Ingalls family...

Cypress Hills Interprovincial Park crosses the Saskatchewan-Alberta border. It is the highest point east of the Rocky Mountains. Perhaps because of its altitude, it has virtually no mosquitoes! That made for some lovely outings, since the mosquito is the provincial bird of Saskatchewan!

The hills are covered with a 100-year-old lodgepole pine forest. The height of the trees is amazing, and so was the scent of pine. Hiking can be strenuous at times up the hills, but well worth it....

Near the Cypress Hills I.P. Park is a winery...yes, a winery on the prairies! They converted their ranch to a winery after the BSE crisis a few years ago. It is like a little oasis surrounded by rolling rugged ranchland. After a wine-tasting, you can head to the patio for a tasty lunch. It was priced well, and the wines were surprisingly good. You can get grape wine, but also more local specialties like Saskatoon Berry, rhubarb wine (their top seller), chokecherry, and even mead!

It started to rain our first night in Sask Landing Provincial Park. We headed out the Cypress Hills in the rain. And boy did it rain! The media called it the "billion dollar rain" since we were in a drought until that time. Our 2008 Airstream did not fare too well. We had leaks in the front window and from the skylight. The skylight had cracks where is was screwed down too tightly. We had a new one on order (for SIX weeks from our dealer) but it didn't arrive in time. "Timely fashion"...

From Saskatoon, our first stop was Sask Landing Provincial Park. We were in the overflow area, so we had no water or power, but the site was beautiful. We were on the river, so through the shrubbery, we had a wide expanse of beach. Goliath, our Chesapeake Bay Retriever, had a great run and swim. Daisy, our Shih Tzu, never understands Goliath's zeal for the beach. He was "dog-tired" after his romp.

Unfortunately, it started to rain during the night and we had to pack up in...