I was a little worried about the weather today. As is my habit, I checked the weather at 2 or three places along our route to see what we were driving into. According to the weather a major winter storm blew through our path yesterday, but today was going to be clear. What that meant for the roads ahead was unclear. As it happened, there was almost no evidence of snow anywhere until just outside of Estevan. Made me wonder if the weather channel was broadcasting fake news! 😉😉
The weather was actually pretty good for driving. It was sunny but really warm, just comfortable. The roads were mostly flat, especially the first half of the day. There was this one part of the road that was interesting, though. If you look at the picture below you will see a road that is going across the picture, almost at right angles to us. In fact, it was the road we were on.
Yep, there was a big curve ahead!
Ok enough about the roads. The scenery we passed was mostly flat farm land, now filled with bales of straw, wheat or hay. there were round bales and big square bales, some of which were stacked into pyramids.
it was not unusual to drive for almost an hour between towns and we were amazed by how large the farms were here. you would see stacks or bales of crop stretching from the road to the edge of the horizon with nothing in between and no farm buildings in sight.
Over the course of the day we crossed the Northern Saskatchewan River
and again.....
and again...
That is right, today we crossed the river 3 times. We crossed it once yesterday as well. Rick, who really does not like bridges did not appreciate the beauty of the river quite the same as I did.
There were some interesting things along the side of the road that I managed to catch a picture of. Some of it was eye catching advertising.
We also saw an RV dealership that had a big cement done on the property. These domes are said to be weatherproof and will not sustain damage if hit by a tornado. The shape makes it impossible for the the wind to get underneath the structure and it is too heavy to be lifted up.
We saw a huge line of silos that stretched across a field and a strange machine that looked like a yellow dragon.
Of course my dragon was just 2 machines positioned close together and the angle I was seeing them at.
We also saw this big machine waiting patiently to cross the 4 lanes of the Trans Canada Highway.
We have, from time to time, encountered some of these machines actually driving on the highway. Yes, I mean the 4 lane Trans Canada Highway.
When we passed through Moose Jaw, I managed to get better pictures of the Moose and Plane that are outside the region's Visitor's Center. the images I captured on our way out west sort of looked like the plane was flying up the moose's butt. Photography seems all about the angle you are shooting from!
As we approached the southern part of the province and our destination for the night, we went through Weyburn Saskatchewan. This town seems to be the dividing line between agriculture and oil and gas production in this part of the province. What stands out for me in Weyburn is their cool metal wheat stalks that hey have along their main road.
The land between Weyburn and Esteven was full of Pump-jacks working to pull either the gas or oil from out of the ground. We speculated that it was oil because we also saw gas flairs that are usually a sign they are burning impurities from the oil. The truth is probably both oil and gas are being pumped out of the ground.
As we approached Estevan, our GPS and Google Maps on my phone, once again gave different directions to the local Walmart. I swear after this trip we could write a book on GPS acting badly. For whatever reason our GPS wants us to go through town and take the long way around to everything. Google told us the street that Walmart was on intersected with the highway we were on so we chose the direct way. when we turned onto the street, though, flashbacks to the 'Montana incident' happened as the road was made of dirt and pretty rough. Thankfully it only lasted about 100 meters. We hit the pavement and within 5 minutes we were parked at Walmart. Rick spoke to the store manager to ensure it was ok to park there for the night and then we did a little shopping before settling in for the night. We were only 40 kilometers from the US border and that is where we were heading first thing in the morning.
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