Travel tales, part II, or: from grasslands to wetlands

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As promised, here is part two of the road pictures.

We covered a lot of prairie, and I always like to look out for the abandoned old homesteads in the fields. I wonder who built them, who lived there, and what kind of memories they hold - the dreams and laughter, love and pain of generations past. Sometimes you see whole farmsteads with several buildings, sometimes just a single house is left, like this one (on Larry and Corrina's ranch land).

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As we were driving we saw some wildlife (sometimes, well, dead), but often we'd come across deer or a coyote.
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Sometimes we were faced with tough decisions like: Bay, River, or Plain? Carrot or Porcupine? :)
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And then there are all the small towns you drive through or pass by. The green sign by the roadside tells you what services the town offers, and luckily for Lily who announced she was in dire need of a bathroom the town coming up had signs for: a restaurant, a picnic area and a gas station. So we pulled off the highway. Turned out the sign could use some updating. The gas station was nowhere to be found, Finn to his utter disappointment found the saloon shuttered and with a "for sale" sign in the window

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and Lily had to make do with the open air bathroom between the shack and the hay stack.
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But - we did find the picnic area, romantically located just beside the rusty old truck.

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Ah, that's better!
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But what surprised us most was all the water in the prairies. For about three years now it has rained A LOT, and the fields that used to be too dry for anything to grow in are now too wet for the farmers to get onto. Neil said he had never seen the prairies this green so early in the year. And there is water everywhere, with the ditches overflowing and forming lakes, rotting away the fence and power posts, roads that are flooded, and basements running full of water, as we experienced first hand at our friends' house. So this guy here definitely had the right idea.
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At the Wilderness Ranch we piled into Larry's truck to check on the cows and the pastures. When we drove onto the field it was like driving into a bog and I was curious to see if the 4 wheel drive would actually manage to get us through. But it kicked in after a while and off we went, luckily. This is what driving through a formerly parched field sounds and feels like now:
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It reminded me of our drive out to the ranch, where we were just happily cruising along (looking at all the water in the fields) when the most hilarious and fitting song came on the country station we were listening to. You just know you've come across a gem of a song when the band who sings it is called "Corb Lund and the Hurtin' Albertans."
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Here are some of the lyrics:
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For The first time in the collective memory,
That old brown prairie that had been so dry for so long was very muddy
Boggy and sticky
We’d pull one truck out and get another stuck in
And motors would roar and tires would spin
We’d sink right down, down to the diff, and we’d all take turns and do it again
Till no one could move, we’d call one more friend,
Come on out here, we need you…bring your truck.
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The Chev got stuck and the Ford got stuck
Got the Chev unstuck when the Dodge showed up
But the Dodge got stuck in the tractor rut
Which eventually pulled out the Ford
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Well it was truck after truck, we all got stuck
‘cept the big old four by hutterite truck
We all thought “lord are we in luck!”
But he wouldn’t come anywhere near us,
Mighty neighborly, mighty neighborly.
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And then they save the day and get the trucks out with the help of some stolen Canola seed. That song cracked us up and I especially loved the part about the Hutterites. I love seeing them in their distinctive garb, shopping at the mall or eating at the buffet restaurants. Anyway, I managed to catch some of that song while filming us in the car. And if you think watching us do nothing in the van for 2 minutes is boring - imagine what it is like driving along like this for hours and hours. :)
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And, here is the official video to that song. Couldn't not post this, of course.

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Those Canadians, eh?
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Let me end this post with a little road incident that Neil declared the "highlight of his trip." (If you are a faithful blog reader you will know that I did not have international driver's licenses made this time around. We just carried our German ones.)
Anyway, we were driving back to Calgary the day before our flight (you know, ENDLESS stretches of empty prairie highway), with Grandma and Grandpa following somewhere behind us in their car. We met up for coffee at a Tim Horton's somewhere along the way, and Grandpa, as is a habit of his, told me not to speed because the fines are hefty and anyway, it's dangerous. Plus, the cruise control on the van is a little off and you might go faster than you think. So, since the speed limit was 100 kph I set the cruise control to approximately 103 or maybe a TAD higher and off we went. Highway straight and empty, with no trees or bushes on either side, I was happily chatting away with Neil when suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a police car with flashing lights pulling out of the ditch to my left just as I passed it.
I pulled over and watched the officer in my rearview mirror talking on her phone and checking whatever things she needed to check for endless minutes, all the while Neil was squirming in his seat, almost peeing his pants with excitement and muttering, 'Come on, Kurt! Where the heck are you when you're needed!? Come on, you just HAVE to drive past us now and give Claudia THAT look!'
Mighty neighborly, Neil, mighty neighborly.
So finally the officer gets out of her car, and my smirking husband rolls down the window so she could inform me that she clocked me going 129. (BOY, talk about that cruise control thing being OFF!☺ ) Then, of course, she needed to see my driver's license and she asked me if this (the German one) was all I had. I said yes. And then guess what happened? She said, 'Well, as you are going back to Germany I am not going to give you a ticket, but slow down, this is a dangerous highway.' (NO KIDDING, with all those police cars hiding in the ditches!)
Neil could not believe his ears, and before he recovered enough to ask her if she would not at least lock me up for a few hours or so I drove off. And slowed down. A little.
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Here's the view of the police car as I'm driving off. And Kurt never passed us. But we did phone him to warn him we had just seen a police car on the highway. :)
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