purpleponyart | New photos on Flickr

Back in August, my husband and I made our first ever trip to Saskatchewan. It's just three hours to the border from Calgary, but it felt like a long, long drive due to tall the wide open spaces. We had booked the trip in February and then wondered if we should still go in the midst of wildfire smoke and a horrible heat wave. But, I felt if we didn't go now, we would never make the trip to see our friends who left the big city for small town life in Shaunavon. Shaunavon is a charming little town that's actually the first big city you hit. It has all the essentials and lots of touristy spots like East End and Gull Lake are within a half hour driving distance. Due to the heat, nothing went quite as planned. I picked that weekend because there was a horse show in town, but for the life of us, we could not find the rodeo grounds. "Just a few miles out of town," we were told but we couldn't even find it on Google Maps. We enjoyed dinner at the boutique Harvest Eatery, enjoyed ice cream at the Frosty Treat and trekked out to East End to see Scotty the T-Rex. I still have more photos to share - stay tuned!