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Kenmare to Leduc

Wednesday, May 3, 2006

Kenmare, North Dakota, the wind is blowing (but I’m being redundant). We have just a few miles to get to the Canadian border at Portal, N.D.

The border lady went through the questions. “Where do you live, How long will you be visiting? Do you have guns, liquor? Gifts for Canadians? How long will you be visiting? Do you have anything from the duty-free store?” She just wanted to be sure we weren’t fooling her that we only wanted to be in Canada two days, I’m sure.

She was satisfied with our answers and gave Carl a slip of yellow paper to prove it.

As we pulled away from her drive up window, a fellow motioned us to drive between a set of traffic cones and park. We were lucky enough to be chosen for a random air brake inspection. We were deselected when they found we hadn’t cleared customs yet. “Just park it over there.”

“There” was two rigs shy of a full parking lot. Carl picked a slot up close to the Customs House and slithered into it. (I don’t know how he does it. I just close my eyes and, after awhile, he turns the engine off and I open my eyes again.)

Going through customs involved the services of a brokerage house which is one aof a half dozen or more with offices in North Portal. Most offices are in older buildings along one of the town’s dirt/mud/gravel pathways. The town plat is quite random. To call it a town is pushing the definition of twon pretty hard. In fact, calling it North Portal is over the edge. It’s a collection of buildings with no obvious road layout but it gets the job done.

We went past the tidy Customs office and wander the “streets” of North Portal until we got to the Livingston brokerage office. Carl delivered up his envelope of paperwork and the broker turned away.

“Have a seat,” he said. There were four of us in the foyer and there were three chairs. Standing was not a bad option.

The couple filling two-thirds of the seating capacity of the room was from Medicine Hat. We had seen several RV trailer haulers on the road and Carl thought this pair might have been in that business. Carl asked. They answered and answered and answered. We still don’t know what they were doing now but we know quite a bit about the period spent pulling trailers up from the U.S. It was not a happy experience and there were lots of details. I didn’t have my notepad. Sorry. Just pretend you’re trapped on an elevator with Chatty Cathy. You’ll have a solid idea of what went on.

There are those who feel North Dakota is flat. It’s true that you have to use radio towers as your guide to know which is the highest hill, but there ARE hills.

In Saskatchawan, they have to dig up the layer of coal 50 feet underground and leave the over burden in piles in order to create hills. North Dakota kind of rolls along, ups and downs in the road; Saskatchawan just kind of lies there unless somebody moves it around. Nobody does unless there’s coal underneath.

The huge dredges lift the dirt aside, pull out the coal, and move on to dig out some more. They “walk” on huge steel pads to their next dredging spot. Some day, they’ll come back and push the overburden back into the hole, smooth it out and plant prairie grass. There were a few spots that are recovering and they look like a new lawn.

We have been dodging in and out of rain much of the trip. The storms march across the prairie just as the books all say. On the leading edge of the storm, the rain tucks back under the cloud and on the trailing edge, the rain trails away just like the cartoons. If the rain leans neither way, you’re driving right into it. We did a lot of that.

As I write this on the road between Swift Current and Medicine Hat, we have been through spates of rain and snow with stretches of neither. The wind is blowing out of the north at about 40 mph right now. There is a big gray thing lying on the road ahead. If it does not move out of the way by the time we reach it… we have hit freezing rain; snow is blowing across the highway, the truck rocks as the wind gusts against it. Carl keeps the steering wheel cocked 20 degrees to the right. Snow, hard pellet snow, is collecting under the windshield wiper. A slight bit of dandruff is building on the left shoulder of the road.

And, then, it’s gone. The road is dry. The dandruff at roadside is gone. The wind continues. But, on the road ahead, is a gray thing, lying there…

Framed in the cloud is the ghostly shadow of a grain elevator, maybe 200 feet high, marking the centerline of the road. At Antelope Road (really) the highway veers more northerly, the grain elevator moves off the centerline, and the snow rolls through again.

This is grain country. Carl noted that on the stretch between Estevan and Morse there were none of the huge concrete grain elevators that mark the landscape here like so many Disney dinosaurs poking their heads up. Now there are three in one five-mile stretch. It is difficult to comprehend that much wheat.

On the outskirts of these smaller prairie towns is a series of signs, maybe four feet by six feet. The first sign tells us that we are welcome to whatever town this is. The second one might have some information about the town including sights to be seen and events to be attended. After that, comes a string of signs, one for each business in town. Sometimes, the row of signs is pretty short.

Midale wants us to know about threashing season which generally is the month of July. Midale is also an oil production center. There was no listing for the Miss Conoco pageant, so we’ll presume there isn’t one.

The price of unleaded regular gasoline has dropped to $1.149. Of course, that’s per litre and in Canadian dollars. Let’s see, 3.8 liters per gallon times $1.149 per liter is $4.26622 per gallon multiplied by today’s exchange rate of .901 Canadian dollar per U.S. dollar and we get $3.84 per gallon in U.S. dollars. That’s higher than anything I have seen so far on this trip in the U.S. by 35 cents.

To be fair, I also saw gas at $1.109 per liter which would be $3.80/gal in USD. Much better.

The Kenworth does not run on unleaded regular. It uses Number 2 diesel fuel at the rate of 6 to 7 miles per gallon to feed its 15-liter (892 cid) 1850 foot pounds torque 475 bhp turbocharged four-valve per cylinder over head valve diesel engine run by a computer with suggestions from Carl’s right foot.

Carl has paid $3 per gallon but prefers $2.71. His recent average is about $2.80 per gallon. We’ve topped up three times on this trip so far at about $120 each. His worst case has been a $400 fillup. The truck has a total fuel capacity of 240 gallons in two saddle tanks. 10 gallons of oil lubricate the engine. $140 oil change/ three filters, lube job.

The tractor weighs about 20,000 pounds. The trailer on the first leg held 28,000 pounds of water beds and furniture. The second trailer has 34,500 pounds of Caterpillar parts making the trailer weigh 65,000 pounds total. That’s 85,000 pounds all up, 42.5 tons.

That’s a mere trifle in Canadian trucking terms. We just passed what Carl called a B Truck. It looks like a tractor pulling two trailers except that the two trailers are joined by a three-axle dolly on which the tongue of the second trailer is riding. The dolly has a fifth-wheel hitch on it to which the trailer is attached. The result is a 30-wheel rig that has to be about 130 feet long with a carrying capacity of 140,000 pounds. That’s three times what we’re pulling right now.

Now THAT’s a good reason not to pull out in front of a truck suddenly.

The truck is big on the road, but it’s bigger when it comes time to park it. It becomes absolutely huge when it comes to turning in places smaller than a football field.

It is interesting how architects have so much regard for shoppers and manufacturing process flow but so little regard for how materials get into and out of facilities. What I’ve seen so far calls for a lot of ability on the driver’s part to overcome lack of foresight or square footage on the designers’ part.

It is especially bad when we talk about stopping for a meal or the night. “Truckers welcome” does not necessarily mean that parking and turning space is available; it often means that truckers are welcome. That’s all.

In Morse, Saskatchawan, Reed Lake doesn’t have any reeds. We stopped for a meal at a Subway in Morse. Across the parking lot to the west was the lake, Reed Lake. No reeds. Perhaps it’s historical.

Our waitress told us that she had been to a conference in Phoenix. Left Morse in a snowstorm at 40 below. Reached Phoenix at 70 above. Kind of a shock to the system and to the wardrobe.

We continued north to Leduc for a night parked at the receiving dock.

Leduc is not Le Duc scrunched together. The name commemorates the first person to visit after the trading post was set up. It happened to be a priest named Leduc. Things to think about as the northern sun sinks very slowly into the Canadian Rockies somewhere out there to the west.

Leduc to Nanton