August 16, 2004

SD to ND to Edmonton, Alberta



August 18:
A good afternoon and night's rest brought us back to normal.    We toured the State House in Pierre, the capital of South Dakota.   It is an architectural triumph, especially considering that it was built in 1910, when the West was primitive if no longer Wild.    The exterior is domed like the USA Capitol, but smaller. The inside is spectacularly ornate, with imported tile floors, Italian marble, appropriate statuary. 

Here I sat in the Senate President's chair -->

The basement walls were lined with photos of previous governors, whose names mostly indicated their Scandinavian origins.

Then we drove north to Minot, the capital and capitol of the other Dakota, the North one.    The capitol was built in 1930, so not surprisingly it is 18 floors of art deco.   The basement walls were lined with photographs of famous North Dakotans, of whom I can remember only Angie Dickinson, Lawrence Welk and Theodore Roosevelt.   The legislative chambers were locked.

Outside, the flowered grounds were beautiful.  A Sacajawea statue reminded us of what a crucial part of USA history was that 16-year-old multilingual mother.

 
August 19: 
From our Minot motel we drove north into Canada.  That afternoon we realized that we couldn't reach our reserved room in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, before darkness and exhaustion set in, and we couldn't get to a phone booth before the 4 PM cancellation deadline, so we were surprised and pleased that we were able to cell phone to an 800 number and get our reservation changed to Regina.

TECHNOLOGY:  
**  Our Corolla had amazing electronic refinements new to us, for safety and monitoring and entertainment.  We hoped backwoods mechanics could make any necessary repairs.
**  I was slow in mastering the alleged simplicities of our Apple Powerbook 15" G4 laptop.  That evening I received an email from Apple saying its battery could be dangerous, and to arrange to have it replaced right away.    Free, but under the circumstances not possible.

ECONOMICS:
We had read that the USA Great Plains are losing population, because young people don't like prairie life, and because farms are being consolidated into ever bigger ones.   Local farmers told us the same thing.    That's like Walmart and its technological efficiencies killing off smaller businesses.   Our 2 day drive from I-90 north to the Trans-Canada Highway were on zigzag two-lane roads, through small or tiny towns where shuttered businesses reminded one of old Route 66.   Therefore it was a surprise to see the apparent greater prosperity on the Canadian side.    Big shiny new hi-tech grain silos,  construction activity, long trains all indicated Canadians were having better luck with their share of the Great Plains.   The many oil rigs on their side of the border contributed to the difference. 

SCENERY:
All the above made our trip over nearly flat country surprisingly interesting.  Through North Dakota we drove for miles with yellow sunflowers on the left smiling at us and the rising sun, while on the right they all had their backs to us.

WEATHER:
A strong northwest wind blew for days, so steady that the wings of a landing crop duster plane didn't wobble.   During our night in Regina the temperature went below freezing, damaging a lot of crops.   It was sobering to realize that this was mid-August, and we would go far to the north, a month closer to winter.    Until an hour before Edmonton the weather was beautiful, which meant the long term drought in middle America continued.    After a short rain it was overcast, cool, and damp.

We were in the Mayfield Hotel in Edmonton for 2 nights.   Either the city had grown a lot since we were there in 1996, or our brains had shrunk, or both.   The Edmonton Mall, where we shopped and ate that day, used to be the world's largest.

August 21.   For the next 7 days we were out of touch with phone and Internet.   We planned 3 days north to Yellowknife, capital of the province of Northwest Territories, 2 nights there, and 2 1/2  days southwest to Fort Nelson, British Columbia, on the Alaska Highway.   Yellowknife to Fort Nelson is 600 miles, half of it on a gravel road opened in 1984.

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