Canada Vacation

This is the actual story of a trip I took with Johnson Family into Canada. The total head count was 19, including myself. The trip took 8 days to complete. We left on Saturday, June 24 at 12:00am and got back on Sunday July 1, around 3:00pm. This is the list of names of everyone who went along. (All their last names are Johnson)

Harry- Grandpa Johnson has taken the most trips to Canada. Says the word "Prit-neer" a lot.

Craig- The only one of Harry's kids with a family, has three daughters.

Renee- Craig's wife. Red hair. Always had the video camera running.

Erin- The oldest of the three daughters at 15. Looks exactly like Emily Johnson.

Allison- Middle child at 13. Loves to read books and is in gymnastics.

Amber- Youngest daughter, 11. Likes gymnastics and volleyball.

Troy- Younger than Craig, a gym teacher at New London Elementary School.

Todd- Younger than Troy. Married to Erica. Math teacher at Willmar School.

Erica- Todd's wife, second trip to Canada.

Jonathan- Erica's brother who was 15.

Larry- Harry's Nephew. 4 kids, all boys and all names starting with "J"

Paulette- Larry's wife. First trip to Canada.

Jordan- Going to be a sophomore.

Jared- Going into 7th grade, taller than Jordan.

Justin- Has glasses and blonde hair. He is in 6th grade.

Jonah- Youngest at 6. 1st grade.

Jeff- Tyler's dad. Renee's Brother. Been on many camping and fishing trips

Tyler- A good friend who invited me along with his family, 17.

The great Canadian adventure started at 12 noon on Saturday to pack the bus and truck. The bus is an old school bus with a big rack on top to hold canoes, and screens over all the windows. Inside there are 8 bunks in the back for sleeping. The middle is where the food is kept. The front has two tables on each side for playing cards. As soon as I got there I started meeting people. I had only met Craig, Renee, and Amber before at Cameron Johnson's graduation party. There were 3 well fed dogs running around. The first person Tyler pointed out was Harry, his grandpa. He was getting the gas together for the boats and there were about 5 others standing around him. One was Troy and the other was Larry. It was easy to see that Craig and Troy were brothers, they were rigging the bus to carry 5 canoes. Others were busy helping to get ready. I helped put the motor rack in Tyler's truck. After the bus and truck had all of the canoes on, Jeff, Tyler, and I went back to Tyler's house to take showers and eat. The plan was to meet Craig at Cash Wise at 8:30 to buy the food. Craig's Eagle got a flat tire on the way to Willmar. Tyler, Jeff, and I got there at 9:30 but the shopping was already done. As we were leaving Willmar, on our way back to Harry's, we were able to see fireworks from the "Works over Water" display on Foot Lake. When we got to Harry's, there were several cars in the yard. Tyler and I went to the house were I met Erin and Allison for the first time. Erin was eating a pizza and at first glance I thought she was Emily Johnson. I could not get over how much Erin, Allison and Amber looked like Emily. Little kids were running everywhere. In the living room, were about 25 people I had never met or seen before, who seemed to be having a good time together. I am not exactly sure why there were all there, perhaps to see us off. After a while, Tyler and I went out to load the truck with gas. Right before we left Renee took a picture of everyone in front of the bus. Jeff drove the truck and Craig drove the Bus. Most people were already sitting in seats so I took an open bunk on the bottom. Finally at midnight, we were on the road to Canada.

I slept very well on the bunk, until we got to Fargo where it was about 45 degrees. Since it was so cold, it was hard to sleep. I was sleeping until we got to the Canadian border and could hear Craig talking to the border guard. We made it through without a hitch. I continued to sleep until we got to the Simson gas station to fill up the bus. Jeff was yodeling when he got out of the truck. After we all went in to go to the bathroom I sat in the coach seat next to Tyler were we slept until the sun came up. Troy came up from the back and we talked to him a while about ice fishing and wrestling. Todd, Erica, Larry, and Paulette were sitting on the other table. Todd was sharpening his knife to a perfect hone. Tyler tried to fix the squeak in my dad's millionaire reel, but unfortunately he only made it worse. The next stop was at a gas station where everyone bought a fishing license. I liked the Canadian money even though it was worth so much less. Tyler drove the truck for a while and I rode with him, but slept the whole time. After riding with Tyler, I got back on the bus and went straight to a bunk. I tried to sleep, but did not have much luck because of the bumpy road. While lying there I could hear Todd reading questions from a quiz book. We played that a few times on the trip up. For lunch, we ate sandwiches at some park on Devils Lake. After eating we all went down to the shore and skipped rocks. Troy and Todd where good at that. Their rocks skipped the farthest. After the many hours of driving we finally arrived at our destination, some river in Manitoba. The last mile of the road was very twisty, windy, muddy, and bumpy. The bus followed the truck in and barley scraped through because of the over grown brush. The final downhill hairpin turn was a nail bitter since the bus had very poor brakes. The first step off the bus was a shocker. It was about 50 degrees, a little cold for shorts and a T-shirt. I quickly changed into jeans.

The bus was parked, and we immediately started taking the canoes off. It didn't take long to load the 7 canoes and motors at the access. Tyler and I were the first to leave shore in our canoe. Everyone's canoe was loaded to the brim. We raced Troy, Erin, and Allison on the way to the portage. They won with the faster canoe, a Coleman. It was Jeff and Renee in the other Coleman. Larry, Paulette, and Jonah were in the Pelican. Todd, Erica, and Jonathan were in the Sea Cow. Craig and Amber rode in the