Year: 2000
Time of year: Sommer
Country: Canada, USA
Places / cities: Winnipeg, Plentywood
My parents and I were invited to our relatives in Canada and the USA. And off we went.
We first went to Winnipeg in Canada. Here we stayed with Wally and Ruth. My parents had visited them the year before, so we were extra well received. We also got to meet Arnie and Lucille, Mike, Laura and Ashley, Don and Kathy, Andrew and Chris.
It turned out that being in Plentywood was a culinary experience. I got to experience iced cappuccino and fell in love with it. The American pancakes with maple syrup became a regular fixture at the breakfast table. Every time we tried something new that my mother liked, she would ask for the recipe. It went so far that after every meal, someone - usually Wally - would laughingly call out "Who wants the recipie!?"
I got in good contact with Laura, daughter of Wally and Ruth. Laura had good taste in cars and music. And she liked Coke more than she liked Pepsi. When we talk about music; I bought the CD "Use your illusions 1" on this trip. Early one morning I was the first to wake up. I snuck into the living room, found the CD player and put the CD on. It was a magical experience to eavesdrop on the record. It was almost how I imagined it was to listen to Radio Luxemburg.
One of the days we all went to one of the beaches. Kathy and Don, daughter and son-in-law of Arnie and Lucille, were also there, along with their young sons. Don had a boat lying nearby. This led me to try water skiing. It was a bit difficult to get up, but otherwise it went well. I also got to try being dragged in a "tube" after the boat. A "tube" is thus one of these large plastic rings that is filled with air. Don tried to drive wild enough that I lost my grip on the tube, but couldn't.
After a few days in Plentywood, the trip continued to Plentywood, Montana. Here my parents and I lived with some other relatives of ours, Genevive and Henry. They were well past retirement age and had a grown son named Bill. Bill had both a farm and a bar and had horses as a hobby.
Genevive's house had an entrance at the front of the house. This entrance went straight into the living room. The house also had a kitchen entrance at the back of the house which – naturally – went straight into the kitchen. The kitchen and living room were wall-to-wall and had an open solution with a half-height dividing wall.
While my parents and I were sitting in the living room talking to our American relatives, including Bill, a girl came into the kitchen entrance and helped herself to something to drink. A sweet girl. While I was wondering in my quiet mind who this girl was, I had obviously started yawning. I met Bill's eyes and with a wry smile he said "she's too young for you". I was a little embarrassed. It turned out that this sweet girl was Melissa, his daughter.
At the dinner table it was common for there to be table prayer, which I was not used to. When I was asked during the first dinner to say the table prayer, I was put off a bit. Obviously my father noticed this and interjected that this was a custom we were not used to. "Well, that's fine. Let's eat" was the reply from Genevive.
Bill was good with party tricks, so I got to experience some of them. But eventually Bill found out that he and I were going out to hunt ground rats; gophers. It was off to the farm by car. I got to try shooting the little critters, me who had barely held a firearm. Unfortunately, many of them were wounded that day. The ones we found we took home to the cat. During this trip, Bill noticed that I always put on my seat belt when we got into the car. With a grunt asked him if I didn't trust him. I was honest to say I did it out of habit.
Another day he took me out to see his horses. Melissa and two little boys were also there. We drove out to one of Bill's fields and found the horses. We youngsters sat in the car while Bill went out to feed the horses. The horses obviously knew what was about to happen, as they flocked around the car. This reminded me a bit of the scene in Jurassic Park where the T-Rex walked around the cars at the enclosure... but without the danger element.
But one thing I thought was a little creepy. One of the last evenings there was a storm on the horizon. In the dark clouds we saw irregular flashes of lightning. Seeing lightning go between cloud and ground I had seen many times, but lightning between clouds was something I had never seen before. It looked apocalyptic.
It was probably earlier that day that we had had a family gathering behind Henriy and Genevive's house. Family from near and far turned up. We youngsters played baseball. During that afternoon, Melissa and I talked about animals. I mentioned my sister's Sheltie and tried to describe the dog by drawing it.
After the visit to Plentywood we went back to Winnipeg. On the journey back to Norway we stopped in Indianapolis. There I bought an English edition of the book Les Miserables.