Dy 8 - July 30, 2013

Day Eight.  Still headed north.  All is well.

The land remains flat along my route of travel, with some rolling hills beginning just north of Regina, but that lasted only a short while, and, then there was a resumption of the seemingly endless prairie.  As I got farther north the land was not under cultivation at the 100% level as it was in the Dakotas and lower Saskatchewan, but not far from it.

The top photo was taken at a stop (gas) at Hanley, SK.  The middle photo is from a stop to photograph another sea Canola, and the third photo is a closeup of the plant.   According to a Canadian link I found this evening there are are over 21 million acres of Canola under cultivation in Canada this year.  Okay, I had to do the math.  21 million acres is 32,812 square miles.  The State of South Carolina is 31,189 square mile. There is more Canola under cultivation in Canada than the entire size of the State of South Carolina.  That is a lot of Canola.

Day 8 started out with rain (again), but it was light, and intermittent through much of the day.  It was 51 degrees when I awoke, and my travel temperatures hovered in the high 50's to lower 60's all day, with mostly cloudy for the day.

Today I traveled on Canadian Highways 11 and 16, the later also named the Trans Canada Highway.  The entire route was a four lane, divided highway, with a posted speed limit of 110 Km (approximately 70 mph). It was mostly smooth, with some areas that needed work, and some areas getting work.  I did not experience any roadwork delays.  The traffic was light.