July 9 - Day 4

Left Pine Tree Campground at about 8:00 this morning. Our goal today was to reach Saskatoon, Saskatchawan.

Everyone I talked to before this trip said that the prairie states would be boring. I didn't think so at all! the roadsides were full of wildflowers, including some species new to me: harebells, sweet yellow clover and purple vetch. The fields were full of colorful crops, especially thousands (millions?) of acres of a bright yellow crop, which I think is canola. The sky was very blue today, with white fluffy cumulus clouds. I really enjoyed seeing the old barns and homesteads, mostly abandoned now, from the early settlement days. The prairies are full of pot holes, too, each with at least one pair of nesting waterfowl. We saw American coots, mallards, canvasbacks and Canada geese everywhere. We saw other birds often today, wheeling and swooping over the water. It took me a while to identify them as black terns. Beautiful bird, one that I have never seen in the US. We also saw a bald eagle soaring over a canola field, and several northern harriers. Wildlife today included a friendly thirteen-striped ground squirrel, a pair of cross foxes hanging out near the carcass of a car-killed deer beside the highway, magpies, and lots of white tailed deer near dusk.

As we approached the Saskatchewan border, the terrain changed, becoming more rolling. We saw more ranches and less crop land.

Crossed into Saskatchewan at about 4:15. We gased up and decided we could probably make Saskatoon before stopping for the day. We are now above the 50th parallel, so the sun doesn't set until nearly 10:30 p.m.

Once again, the land flattened out and wheat, barley, rye and canola fields prevailed. Haying is in full swing, too, with fields full of giant round bales. Nearly every town has at least one grain silo, and some have several. We saw several long freight trains today, loaded with grain, and stopped briefly to watch the loading operation.

A few miles before Saskatoon , we could see a huge storm system rolling across the sky, complete with lightning and black swirling clouds. We figured it might be best to stop a little early, so we found a small campground just before the storm reached us.

526 miles today, making a total of nearly 2200. Tomorrow we will visit a museum in Saskatoon, and another in N. Battleford before heading to Alberta.