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Philadelphia, PA10406 Posts
None of this metaphorical nonsense, I'm literally road tripping from Minneapolis-Saint Paul to Seattle, by way of Calgary and Vancouver, where I've always wanted to visit. This is repost of my Blipfoto blog.
Day One: Minneapolis to Regina, SK![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/treehugger/TITrip1.jpg)
Back on the road.
At 8:30am CDT, I inched my way out of the Twin Cities rush hour traffic, looking westward, unsure of what lay ahead besides long hours in the car. At 9:00pm MDT, dangerously low on gas, windshield a kaleidoscope of bug impact craters, I rolled into Regina, the capital of Saskatchewan.
I've never driven a 12 hour day before, but there's something about logging long hours behind the wheel that lessens the impact of time. There was no real difference between six hours and twelve. It was only as the first leg of my roadtrip reached it's conclusion that I began to feel the weight of my hours spent behind the wheel in my arms, and the cramped confines of my rental in my legs and back.
My drive was never boring. I was traveling through uncharted territory for me, my first time in this region of the world. I have been to LAX twice, and once to Arizona; there are my sole real experiences in the North American "west". To start, I drove up along I94 to Fargo-Moorhead, ("Home of Roger Maris, the legitimate home run champion" — but Ruth hit 60 in less games) and a third of the way into North Dakota ("Legendary" — hyperbolic). In Jamestown, I branched off onto Route 52, a weird chimera of a state highway that twists and turns and takes many forms on it's way to Canada.
North Dakota was pretty much exactly what you would expect. It is a flat and dusty land; carpeted in prairie grasses, wheat, and canola; littered with bales of hay. The only topography comes courtesy of the rivers which cut across the state, mostly North-South, carving shallow grooves into the pancake. I traveled leisurely along the Des Lacs river for a half hour on my way out of Minot, a sleepy regional hub cum suburban nightmare oil boomtown. Then, the highway rose out of the basin, and it was off to the races again across the flats.
Yet emerging from the tranquility of the river was something of a twilight zone experience. Imagine returning to the landscape upon which you have spent nearly six hours galloping across, only to find it subtly changed. At first you don't notice it. More hay bales, wheat fields, splashes of canola fly past. Then, out of the corner of your eye, you spot the invader. It nods at you, up, down, up, down, up, down. And as your eyes return to the road, unnerved by what you have seen, suddenly the true nature of the landscape is laid bear to you. There, in the field passing on your right, nods another oil derrick. On the field to your left, a third. Casting your eyes further ahead, you see a movement that cannot come from the prairie wind. Up, down, up, down, up, down, nod a massive host of oil derricks, and you have stumbled amidst them as surely as if they had laid an ambush.
Welcome to the Bakken formation. You are surrounded.
It's tempting to read incredible violence into the landscape done by the derrick armada, but once you've overcome the initial shock, the derricks and their rhythmic motion become as common and as normal as the hay bales. The creeping feeling returns when you cross into Saskatchewan, ("Land of the Living Skies" — poetic) because the derricks are accompanied by flares; burning lighthouses across the oceans of waving green grasses. Then there is a period past the border where the ground has been turned up and churned by giant earthmauling shovels, the heart of each occupied by a large white control center large enough to be a house. And then it all fades, the derricks, the mounds of dirt, the monster machines, and you're lost again on the flatlands, the sun climbing down from cloud to cloud towards the broad-brimmed horizon.
Sometimes I forget that for each place in the continental US that is considered to be a frigid tundra (Read: MN, ND) there is a significant part of Canada that is much much colder, and that many people actually do live in these places. Where American density goes to die is basically the point where Canadian density is at its highest. For every bleak, American backwater, there is a bleaker, Canadian equivalent.
Saskatchewan is the haunted moonscape to North Dakota's lonely plains. The huddles of trees that give the North Dakotan landscape some measure of friendliness have abandoned Saskatchewan en-masse. The oceans of grass and canola fields stretch further out that you ever dreamed possible hours ago. It's a neolithic land. The silhouettes of silos and farmhouses stand alone like stonehenges, and you it adds to the mystique. "It's almost as if someone put that there intentionally", you think. And then moments later you remember that someone did put it there intentionally. But when the next agribusiness nexus rises out of the road, you're back to wondering what ancient people built this thing, and what on earth it could be for.
Saskatchewan is an understated place. There is nothing that demands your attention, nothing that kicks open your car door, drags you out by the collar and compels you to fork over $5 or a moment of your time. But its influence is subtle. The skies had two tiers of clouds when I drove through. There were friendly Cumulus clouds that made everything feel small, and streaking Cirrus clouds above that went on and on and made it feel like the world was very big and it was you that was small. As I drove along, the land spread taut ahead of me and I could see clearly the curvature of the earth. It was entrancing. A lonely landscape not looking for company, just for more souls to join in its quiet contemplation.
Only an extended stop at a construction site was jarring enough to break the spell. After that, it was straight on to Regina, although with constant glances at my dropping fuel gauge.
I have only been in Regina for an hour, and I plan to leave early in the morning. It's a surprising city. The city itself doesn't pack many surprises, it simply surprises you by existing. One minute you're passing by the same fields you've befriended for almost half a day, the next, you're on a tree-lined boulevard surrounded by dense residential neighborhoods, and a moment later you're passing by bars and a few outlet malls and then suddenly 50's office buildings, and then a glass office building or two, and that's the city. You will see none of this coming until it comes. This is possibly because Regina appears to have all of the trees in the province,. It's a very leafy city. Still, from far away, I initially mistook the Regina skyline for another agribusiness plant.
Tomorrow, a shorter drive (although still fairly long) skirting the edge of Canada's answer to the US's decades of gross environmental misconduct (Alberta's Tar Sands) and straight on to Calgary!
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If you stop in Calgary tomorrow, try to go to Wurst for dinner. It's a little pricey but it has some AMAZING food and good beer. FYI the Tar Sands are the only reason this country survived the world's economic downturn and employs more environmental engineers than any field 
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As a Reginian who has travelled and lived throughout the world, our province's motto "Land of the Living Skies" really hits home for me, and it makes me incredibly happy for outsiders to appreciate that same beauty. Most Canadians are dismissive of the prairies as 'boring and flat'. That open sky is the most beautiful thing in the world after living in Seoul and other skyscraper cities for 6 years.
Have fun on your journey. I did the Number 1 trip from Regina to Vancouver earlier this year, and the drive through the Rocky mountains is both awesome (in the word's original sense) and exciting. Be sure to make some stops in Banff and Lake Louise to see the best of the Canadian Rocky Mountain experience. If you're camping, there's a few free campsites that you can use during the trip.
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28098 Posts
ahh tree, why didn't you come to Saskatoon bro. It's not too far from Regina, and in my biased opinion we are the far better city 
Anyways, the drive to Calgary is pretty nice. You should stop at Drumheller for lunch or something, if you are taking that route. Also the drive through the Canadian Rockies is literally the best experience ever. Make sure to check out Banff, it's only like 1-2 hours from Calgary. I go with my family through the Rockies all the time, usually ending up in Vancouver/Victoria for a week or two. One year we decided to go straight to Vancouver first, and then hit banff/calgary for a few days on the return trip. We drove all the way to Van in one day, rofl. Just stopped for lunch and dinner, I think it took like 18-19 hours or something.
Also, see ya in Seattle 
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Regina and Saskatoon are basically the exact same city, except one has a river while other has a lake and a even dumber name.
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28098 Posts
On August 02 2013 16:05 TheKwas wrote:
Regina and Saskatoon are basically the exact same city, except one has a river while other has a lake and a even dumber name.
I find that Saskatoon looks a lot different. But I guess there are probably the same amount of things to do, lol.
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Nice pictures, some of them are downright painterly.
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Those are some great pictures. hf and travel safe.
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Come up to PA if you want something to kick in your door and demand 5$, we have plenty of that up here in very northern Saskatchewan.
It's nice to see people who aren't accustom to the wasteland that is the Canadian prairies experience them. When I took a trip to Blizzcon I was amazed at the lack of open space in California it was crazy.
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28098 Posts
On August 02 2013 17:36 Esoterikk wrote:
Come up to PA if you want something to kick in your door and demand 5$, we have plenty of that up here in very northern Saskatchewan.
It's nice to see people who aren't accustom to the wasteland that is the Canadian prairies experience them. When I took a trip to Blizzcon I was amazed at the lack of open space in California it was crazy.
Nice you're in PA? I've been up there a bunch of times for Track and Field Provincials and a wedding.
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On August 02 2013 17:38 TheEmulator wrote:Show nested quote +On August 02 2013 17:36 Esoterikk wrote:
Come up to PA if you want something to kick in your door and demand 5$, we have plenty of that up here in very northern Saskatchewan.
It's nice to see people who aren't accustom to the wasteland that is the Canadian prairies experience them. When I took a trip to Blizzcon I was amazed at the lack of open space in California it was crazy. Nice you're in PA? I've been up there a bunch of times for Track and Field Provincials and a wedding.
Yeah, for another year or so, I move to Stoon next year to attend U of S.
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28098 Posts
On August 02 2013 17:39 Esoterikk wrote:Show nested quote +On August 02 2013 17:38 TheEmulator wrote:On August 02 2013 17:36 Esoterikk wrote:
Come up to PA if you want something to kick in your door and demand 5$, we have plenty of that up here in very northern Saskatchewan.
It's nice to see people who aren't accustom to the wasteland that is the Canadian prairies experience them. When I took a trip to Blizzcon I was amazed at the lack of open space in California it was crazy. Nice you're in PA? I've been up there a bunch of times for Track and Field Provincials and a wedding. Yea for another year or so, I move to Stoon next year to attend U of S.
I go to U of S
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Saskatchewan is named after ChuaN the Sasquatch.
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Philadelphia, PA10406 Posts
I'm always interested to read other people's reflections on New York or Minnesota, hopefully my thoughts are entertaining to guys as well. Saskatoon was not on my itinerary unfortunately because of time and distance constraints. Driving 12 hours to barely make hostel closing time was enough, an additional couple hours driving North was not was I was after. And Saskatchewan really wasn't my goal on this trip. But after having been here, I think a return trip might be nice in the future. More time is definitely needed.
Anyway, got some good sleep. Off to find breakfast here, walk around a bit, and then hit the road again! As a kind of last minute shot in the dark, some of the cheap places to stay in Calgary were washed out by the floods. If anyone would be willing to let me crash on their couch, even for one night, that'd be awesome. I'd buy dinner. PM me!
Alright, that's all!
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I. AM. JEALOUS.
Roadtrips are amazing, and something I always remember for a veeery long time. Suck it all in and enjoy. The words in your blog gave a "good" feeling as well.
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Enjoy Seattle & International.
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Canada16217 Posts
Calgary for me is a nice city to live in, the only bad thing is the weather but I guess you could say that about most of Canada.
Thanks for the blog btw, and have fun at the international!
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On August 02 2013 23:09 tree.hugger wrote:
I'm always interested to read other people's reflections on New York or Minnesota, hopefully my thoughts are entertaining to guys as well. Saskatoon was not on my itinerary unfortunately because of time and distance constraints. Driving 12 hours to barely make hostel closing time was enough, an additional couple hours driving North was not was I was after. And Saskatchewan really wasn't my goal on this trip. But after having been here, I think a return trip might be nice in the future. More time is definitely needed.
Anyway, got some good sleep. Off to find breakfast here, walk around a bit, and then hit the road again! As a kind of last minute shot in the dark, some of the cheap places to stay in Calgary were washed out by the floods. If anyone would be willing to let me crash on their couch, even for one night, that'd be awesome. I'd buy dinner. PM me!
Alright, that's all!
If I wasnt away this weekend I would let you >< but I dont think my girlfriend would be to keen on me saying "Random dude from TL sleeping in our spare room, but dont mind him, I'll see you in a few days" lol.
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I also vouch for Banff. You should definitely visit it on your way there, if you haven't been there before, It is definitely worth your time.
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EPT![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/treehugger/TITrip2.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/treehugger/TITrip3.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/treehugger/TITrip4.jpg)
