Pierre to home

9733 to home

Spokane WA

8280
Fair bridge hotel, was trying to save face hotel in fairly rundown neighborhood.

Vancouver to Spokane, Wa

7810 miles behind.

Prince George to Vancouver

7240

Hines Junction to Hines

6593 miles

To Hines junction

Tok 6288

Day 11 Anchorage to Talkeetna

5690
We rent a cabin at Dave Fish Alaska. I want to give Scott opportunity to fish here in Alaska.

Day 5 Dawson Creek - Watson lake

2975 miles away from home

Calgary geology

https://goo.gl/images/hU8U4r

Day 4 From Medicine hat to Calgary

It is  Jul 19, 2018 

It is flat as it can be. We start the day 1805 miles away from home. We left the Ranchmen Motel to Calgary,

Arround Tilley we are getting on oil field

And again the Canola fields 

Interesting Petro-Canada gas station building 

 

Calgary. I am totally disappointed with my first glance at this town

It looks like LEGO made a town. The belt on the east end of the new neighbourhoods looks like honeycombs. It looks like a camp rather than a residential area.

We zip throughout the town and head to Banff, Alberta

Day 3 From Winnipeg to Medicine hat

We start Day 3 with 1100 miles behind heading for Medicine Hat 

8:05 and we are on Trans Canada Highway

As soon we left town the canola fields appeared 

Simple pictures like this warm my heart. They reminds me of France, but it is so funny because I have never been to the French fields - the champagne.

The black gold of Canada

Salty lakes 

Medicine hat had big pottery industry in the past. They dig the clay of the river banks 

Worlds Tallest Teepee  is by the interpreteve center

Day 2 From Minneapolis, MN to Winnipeg, MB, Canada - Drive 456 miles, 7 h 10 min

Quin Be Hotel is a Korean venture one of the many in Winnipeg. with the simple, minimalistic  Asian esthetics.

We really struggle here for outlets to plug our numerous chargers and the table was so small that was even hard to play chess on it.






In the bathroom, we have a courteous request to use less water because of owners  strive for sustainability  
We arrived early and we have a still daylight to explore the town of Winnipeg.
Esplanade Riel Footbridge

Dollorama is apparently the Canadian version of US Dollar store 
To our surprise, we were charged for taking plastic bags. My Americans had found this disturbing. 


We see some French
We had early supper lunch in this Somaly restaurant

Day 2 From Minneapolis, MN to Winnipeg, MB, Canada - Drive 456 miles, 7 h 10 min

Little continental breakfast is always a good start for the day 

With 592 miles behind, we start the day toward Winnipeg, Canada.
It is July 17th.

It is a short route, but I consider border pass today so ...We should not have problems at the Canadian border. We are family and normally we are on the safe side of the travellers crossing the borders.  But I was proved wrong more than ones and we had our car searched and for 2 hours and I was put in a glass container - I guess that is the modern days for a personal search. So I really don't know how the day going to be and for that reason, I don't plan a long trip for today.

It is early in the morning and a lot of commuters are on the road we are to, but for a different reason - we are on v a c a t i o n.
Just last Saturday, Jul 14 was my final from my 2 classes Summer semester at EIU. and that will make 8 classes down for the year so far.

I am impatient to see the mountains.  So far the landscape is flat and can be seen the same crop as ours -corn and soybeans as can in Illinois. But something new appears - rapeseed in astonishingly beautiful fields of sparkly yellow.

Although they look similar, canola and rapeseed plants and oils are very different. Canadian scientists used traditional plant breeding in the 1960s to eliminate the undesirable components of rapeseed* and created "canola," a contraction of "Canadian" and "ola." Canola oil is prized for its heart-healthy properties with the least saturated fat of all culinary oils.

Canola seeds contain about 45%  oil. This large percentage of oil comes in a small package; canola seeds are similar in size to poppy seeds, though brownish-black in colour.

90%  of production was in North Dakota, with smaller amounts in Minnesota, Montana, and South Dakota. Roughly 30,000 acres of canola grown for planting seed are scattered throughout Colorado, Montana, and Idaho to supply U.S. and Canadian farmers

And here it is

Brief and courteous interview and we are already on the road, Asking ourselves - what is new, what is different here. We are in a foreign country after all - right.

It is in a way disappointing as we are finding so little differences here. Travellers are like hunting dogs on the trail when it comes to the differences. We live for that. We collect and cherish them as our trophy we find with such inconveniences.  

Besides us other that seems to be "out of place" is the substantial population of Asians to the point that about 30% of the signs are on alphabet I do not recognize or words that do not ring a bell - of course, panda and dragon are excluded - we love China buffets. And for our great surprise, there is virtually no black people there and just a few Spaniards.

Day 1 From Tuscola to Minneapolis The Hotel - Quality Inn and Suites

The hotel 

The day ends in Quality Inn and Suites, midsize hotel with highly

neglected carpet. The room is a large bedroom with a small living room and kitchenette combined. As in the main lobby, the carpet here is not pleasant at all. We're happy to get in a  clean comfortable bed after this long day we had today.

Tthe hotel is in the search sad state as the owners try to take the most

out of it as they neglect the major cleaning expenses and rely only on

the employees, that are trying their bests to save face in front of the

Despite that, we had a prior reservation the front desk look very

confused when they had to find a room for us.  Another customer just returned from a room they were sent to as the room was already taken. On the next trip, this hotel will not be my first choice.

Little supper in the kitchenette finishes our day. No much money spent today - we are happy

Day 1 From Tuscola to Minneapolis Their way of doing it.

Their way of doing it.

It is very strange to me to observe how people from different points of the Earth had similar or different decisions of the same problem

What I see here in Minnesota I have not seen anywhere here in the US for 18 years they built a

road from borders to accommodate the trucks servicing high power Electric line along the road. The same approach they use to build workspace around each electric post. I assume I can call them high power high voltage electric line posts.

They are humungus towering up to 6 or 7 times higher than the average building.