Maple Creek an all.....

 Maple Creek is one of those places you have to see to believe. One main street about a mile long with side streets leading nowhere. Parallel to "the street" runs a railway line which serves some kind of mill, a massive  tower of concrete and steel visible for miles. Half the street is unmade and dust everywhere including inside the very dark hotel/bar we had coffee in. Hearing our out of town accents, the landlady stared mouth open at our request for coffee for a long time. She eventually landed, served coffee and asked what was happening in Coronation Street? Coffee was the best!

 Lunchtime we found a Chinese restaurant and enjoyed the $10 all you can eat buffet aware all eyes were on us.  The owner of the restaurant took Lyns credit card, popped it in the machine, punched in some numbers, made a mistake, took card out and wiped it. It never worked again, the machine said "chip undetected". Several more attempts, same result. Never invited to enter pin number so we paid with another card and left. Stupid card machine, eh? Leaving town we decided to fill up with diesel ready for departure in the morning and put $80 worth in. The card machine here didn't like Lyns card either, same message. We have 4 other cards, all debit which didn't like the card machine this time. Message was "Declined-invalid acquiring financial institution". Whatever does that mean? It meant I had to leave my driving licence with Katie and find the only bank with an ATM in town for the cash. So, now we have no creditcard, if we phone the company in the UK they will send out a new one to our home address in 2 days, but we are in Saskatchewan. Debit card use incurs a charge with each transaction. Gonna have to think about this one...........

Anyway, tomorrow we cross into Alberta and the Rockies!