Roadtrip Underway

Made the drive from Saskatoon to Bismarck today. Long day, but interesting. Had to stop at Jenny K in Estevan. Don't use the restrooms, or look in the kitchen. That said, the ginger beef and ginger chicken are as advertised… great!

Until you get near Minot, the scenery from Regina south is very similar. The wind turbine farms in ND were impressive, as is the area around the Garrison Dam. Coal mines were a bit of a surprise though. Just like eastern Wyoming.

Bismarck is a nice little city, 60,000 pop. Weather is gorgeous!

More tomorrow, if nobody objects.

you'll never hear a geographer complain about such reports :)

We are now in Fargo ND.

A little more of a relaxing day. Started off with a round of golf at a course called Hawktree. Gorgeous course built in a coulee that used to be ranch land. Think Dakota Dunes in Saskatoon on fertilizer. Ranked #58 in the USA. Killed me, but THC did well. Going to the course, we went along River Road and got a good view of the flooding problems on the Missouri south of Garrison Dam. Many side roads closed, and houses sandbagged. Funny to see volleyball courts with water up the the nets!

The interstate going east from Bismarck is about as straight as they come. One spot is down to one lane traffic each way with dikes holding back the water, which is about a foot above road level. As we got closer to Fargo, the land was very similar to the Winnipeg area, which isn't surprising, since we're only about 300 km south and still in the Red River drainage basin.

Had supper at Olive Garden, which we still don't have in Saskatoon!

TTYT!

Had a wild night in Fargo last night. One of the strangest thunderstorms I have ever seen. About 3 AM the lightning and thunder started, and it was continuous. I mean there was a constant rumbling, almost like a train. And no rain. Rain finally started about an hour later when the light show slowed down to normal.

Hit the road in the morning and travelled south. Still looked like the Winnipeg area for about and hour, but it was all corn. If I assume the fenceposts were a metre, then the corn had to be 3 metres or more in places. Then hit a ridge of low hills that was short grass ranchland, and a sign that said 'Continental Divide'. I am assuming that we crossed over into the Mississippi-Missouri drainage basin. Then the rain ended, and we were back into farm country. More corn of course.

Got into Sioux City SD about noon, and went for a round of golf. Flat old course with very mature trees. Nothing like Saskatchewan trees. Some had to be 3 metres in diameter! Temperature is 36, humidex of 44!!! And it's 7 in the evening. AND we were golfing from 1 to 5. Crazy!

It did take a little bit of beer to rehydrate. Purely for medicinal purposes of course.

Keep us posted. It's a neat little journal of your travels.

Cooled off overnight, only 27 when we got up. Hit the road south on I-29 after coffee at iHop. Still pretty flat for about an hour, then went over a ridge of hills and now can see hills to the east. I believe that they are called the Leoss Hills. I wonder why? Looks like another glacial feature to me.

Coming into Sioux City Iowa, the flooding is even more pronounced. One entire Interstate exit is underwater. We met up with the Missouri again there and it's influence was felt all the way south. The I-26 southbound is totally closed from the I-680 interchange. Had to make a detour on the 680 to the I-80, and then into Council Bluffs Iowa, across the river from Omaha Nebraska.

Played a round at the Dodge Riverside course. Had to play the back nine twice, as the front nine is flooded from groundwater seepage. The casino next door is sandbagged, and half the parking lots are under water!

Still hot and humid, but only about 35 now. Shopping at a large mall in Omaha, and back to the hotel in Council Bluffs.

ohhh… you really shouldn't tempt me to bore people to tears with explanation… :)

Pooga said:
I believe that they are called the Leoss Hills. I wonder why? Looks like another glacial feature to me.

"Loess" … a German term… is essentially wind-deposited silt – blow-dirt that we sometimes see in the Prairies (just not very thick). It is a periglacial feature that forms in the region past the furthest advance of the glacial ice. In that dynamic environment, near the ice, the incomplete vegetation cover allows the newly deposited finer textured materials to be carried by the wind and it can be deposited in very thick banks often 10s of metres thick (some in China are >100m thick). The material is exceptionally well-suited to agriculture (fertile) and in the USA, corresponds what is commonly referred to as "The Corn Belt" – which is just beyond the most southerly advance of the Pleistocene glaciations.

Rudyk you are a wealth of knowledge… Thank you so much for the explanation…..

Not boring at. It really explains what I witnessed as far as crops were concerned. More below….

Up extra early to head south from Council Bluffs. The I-29 is closed down completely at US-34 (just south of Offutt Air Force Base). Had to detour east to US 71, which went south to St. Joseph Missouri. The I-29 is flooded from US-34 all the way to Rock Port Missouri. Only added about 30 minutes to the drive, and it was actually very picturesque.

As soon as we got into the Loess Hills, corn crops petered out and it became mainly soybean. Beautiful rolling hills of green with a lot of trees as well. Corn only became more abundant as we returned near the river. The Kansas City area was a surprise. It was heavily treed and the highway did have a lot of rock cuts near the river. I always imagined Kansas as a vast plain like around Regina, but it is nowhere near that. Very different vegetation, but landscape-wise, I would compare it to Edmonton.

We took the I-435 around the west side of Kansas City Missouri and hit The Legends Outlet Mall in Kansas City, Kansas. (Just for THC of course). Had lunch and a few beer at The Yardhouse, which is our favourite place to go in the States. Great food and about 150 brands of draught beer available. Over the 6 times that we have been to one, we are slowly sampling the entire list.

Then on to Overland Park Kansas, to register at a Cosmopolitan International convention. The Cosmo Club in Canada only exists on the prairies, compared to the entire US, but we still make up 30% of the attendees!

This is the farthest south we get and will be here for the convention for a few days. I doubt that there will be anything newsworthy, so there will probably be no further updates until after the convention.

Oh yes, the temperature only got up to 35 today, and the humidity is way down.

Did have some free time during the convention, so I thought I'd fill you in.

Thursday afternoon was golfing with fellow conventioneers. The course was just south of Swope Park in Kansas City MO. If you are a serious SF fan, you will know that Swope Park figures prominently in the life and writings of Robert Heinlein.

The golf course itself is over 100 years old, and was once an exclusive country club in an affluent neighbourhood. But about 50 years ago, the rich started moving out, and it can now be considered upper lower-class. The course has fallen on hard times, but is still surviving.

We went for supper to an outlet of a small (200 locations) Italian chain called Carrabba's. It's owned by the people that own Outback Steakhouses. If you consider Olive Garden an upscale Boston Pizza, then this place will blow you away, as their pasta is made in house, daily, and the rest of the food is fantastic.. Cool side note, our waiter was an opera singer between shows, and was just there for two weeks. Man, could he sing!

Saturday afternoon I spent at the National WWI Museum. Never knew the place existed, but it was well worth it. Could have spent another day there.

Saturday night was the convention finale. Most of the men were in tuxes, as was I. However, when it was my turn to have a picture taken with the International President-Elect, who is from Regina, I made sure to pull out my Rider toque. (Or as they call it here, a 'stocking cap'!!!)

More later!

I know, I know, I fell behind! By the time we got back to our room every night, I was just too tired to write anything.

So here's the short version.

On day 9, drove from Kansas City to Minneapolis via Des Moines Iowa. Gentle rolling and heavily wooded hills give way to the true Corn Belt north of Des Moines. Crossing into Minnesota, we slowly got back into wooded hills. Supper at another Italian chain, Buca di Beppo's. Not as good as Carrabbas, but not too shabby.

Day 10 was 11 hours of shopping at the Mall of America. 'Nuff said, THC was in charge!

Day 11 was a short drive to the Albertville Outlets. A few hours of shopping, drive to Fargo and have supper at Granite City, which was really good as well. Drove a bit more to overnight in Jamestown ND. WARNING: do not go anywhere in North Dakota without a confirmed hotel reservation. Everything is booked solid due to the floods, and the oil field expansion. We saw many people turned away at the desk who had to drive over 2 hours south to find accommodation.

Day 12 was a 9 hour drive back to Saskatoon.

Day 13 was a day of yardwork, laundry, car unpacking, cleaning and repacking.

Day 14 was our local Cosmopolitan Golf Tournament.

And finally, today, Day 15 was the drive to Calgary, and on into Canmore. The usual boring drive between Kindersley and Hanna was actually interesting. I have never seen that part of the country looking so green. Supper at a great little gourmet restaurant called The Elita. Again, excellent food!

On the road again tomorrow, but probably not a whole heck of a lot to talk about.

Day 16: Drove from Canmore to Kamloops. Have not driven in this direction in over 20 years. We usually do the Yellowhead westbound and the TC eastbound. Made it seem like an entirely different drive. Had to wash off a nice thick layer of Alberta bugs though.

Stopped at De Mille's in Salmon Arm. Great place for fresh fruit and vegetables. They also have a butcher shop now, so we picked up some steaks to BBQ in Kamloops. I don't know what they call the grade above AAA, but these were fantastic.

Day 17: Just a nice relaxing round of golf at Eaglepoint. This course used to be cut into a Ponderosa pine forest. But they've been hit hard by the pine beetle over the last 3 years. The estimate is 20,000 trees killed. Sad to see. Supper at Frick & Frack, a former Fogg & Suds location