July 7 - Alberta to Saskatchewan to Manitoba

We are stopped just outside of Winnipeg, Manitoba for a bite to eat. We're still seeing field upon field of yellow canola, something we have seen ever since entering Alberta. Since entering Alberta we've also seen much evidence of "black gold," with little oil rigs dotting the landscape and, yesterday, large black oil storage tanks scattered among the farmlands.

I saw one of these tanks with a the following message painted on it - "Welcome to Marshall, Black Gold country." (Missed a photo of this, darn.)

Yesterday, we also saw evidence of agribusiness, Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) train cars and Cargill grain silos.

I often wonder, when I see farmhouses off in the distance, adjacent the hundreds of miles of crop land, are any of these lands still owned and farmed by families or are they all owned by corporate agribusiness?

Speaking of farms, the past few days we have witnessed on the highway what I decided to call Unusual Farm Vehicles (UFVs) also known as Farm Vehicles of Unusual Size (FVOUSs).

Weather has been hot and sunny the past two days, altho' it's cooling down now that it's 8 p.m. We will try to make it close to the US border before stopping this evening and then will cross over from Manitoba into Minnesota, on either Hwy 75 or 59.