A road trip kind of day — An Elegant Sufficiency

We left Minot this morning, heading north towards the border, for tonight we will be in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada.

It was a direct kind of route, in a straight line sort of way! Maybe not the most interesting driving, but we were prepared with snacks and drinks, plus of course, our extraordinary good humour.

One source of smiles arose from dinner last night in a recommended restaurant in Minot. When offered a choice of dressing for my salad, one was offered that I didn’t recognise. I asked our waiter for more details and appreciated his description of it as “Caesar Adjacent”. That phrase has provided us with plenty of smiles all day and I suspect, will be included in our memories from this road trip for some time to come.

Anyhow, we set off on the ND52 this morning, heading for the border at Portal.

We left Minot behind and were soon out into the countryside once again, this time a few rolling green hills with trees. Very different from the Badlands we’d seen driving west.

There are some essential stops on road trips and I collect the mileage and fuel details in my notebook. Our experience in Ireland (broken down rental car issues) taught us well and we make sure we keep all the evidence, just in case.

A little further along, a man was standing holding a STOP sign and as we waited, we mused on the task he had been assigned and likened his role to that of Penny Mordaunt in the recent coronation of King Charles III. Eventually, the pilot car arrived and we followed it through the roadworks. All a little excessive, to be honest.

As I hadn’t taken a photo of the first guy, I was on the lookout for the chap at the other end of the sector. This chap was taking his role rather less seriously and was altogether more casual.

By now, the outlook was a little samey. Not many landmarks to observe, though as we were driving parallel to a railway line there was always the chance of a locomotive sighting.

We’d not gone much further however, than the whole road works shenanigans began again. This time, a young woman had the sign holding responsibility and once more we waited a good ten minutes before it was our turn to go.

Out into the Greater Yellow Grass Marsh - the 19th century term for the area before measures were taken to make the land more suitable for arable use. Having said that, it still looked pretty yellow!

But it was upstaged by the first of several train spottings.

We also had the added distraction of the border crossing. Passports at the ready, our return into Canada was rather less anxiety-inducing than our entry to the US and having answered a couple of questions, we were waved through.

As we did, we returned to Mountain time and adjusted our watches accordingly.

The Canadian side of the border was, unsurprisingly, pretty similar to the American side. There was the same large agri-business here and there.

In places, there was also evidence of oil extraction and a few more cattle here and there as well.

In Weyburn, we passed a “roadside attraction” described as wheat sheaves, though I think that might have been a little exaggeration of something I’d describe as more stalks than sheaves.

Every so often, we’d pass by one of these collections of grain silos by the railway line.

This immensely long engine was hauling wagons loaded with potash from Saskatchewan as were several of the trains we passed by.

We were ready for a short pitstop at this location, reminiscent of a Hopper painting.

On putting our feet on Saskatchewan soil for the first time, we did a little “new province” celebration too, though I hardly think we’ll manage all ten (though Saskatchewan brings us to eight of them!)

Anyway, more trains…and the realisation that we were approaching the junction for Moose Jaw. We’d made good time and perhaps we’d make a small diversion to take a look at “Canada’s most notorious city”.