Riding across the vast expanse of Alberta one is immediately struck by the number of oil wells everywhere. These are no longer the prehistoric dinosaur like oil derricks one used to see in the US and which one still sees in Canada from time to time. The old pumps used to resemble an animals head moving up and down.

The flat prairie lands of Alberta are dotted with black tanks and an array of pipes leading to a wellhead. Eventually I could take it no longer, so Bonnie and I turned off the highway, onto a side road, dirt of course and made our way to one of the installations. The photo’s are below.

Alberta’s fields are floating on a sea of oil

A typical tank next to the well head

These tanks appear to hold about 150k liters of crude. The label read light (sweet) crude. This is the very best type of oil as it has the lowest Sulphur content. The oil in these black tanks is then fed to a central depot along the railway line, from where the oil-bearing wagons are filled and it is transported to the refineries.

This is “Sweet” Oil

Into the trains

There are literally thousands of the wells as far as one can see. Each, pumping a couple of thousand liters a day. Black Gold. Alberta really is floating on a sea of oil. “Welcome to Black Gold County”  the sign at Marshall AB proclaims. Signs of the wealth being generated are everywhere in Alberta, which is rapidly becoming Canada’s wealthiest Province. Add this to a booming agricultural sector and the good times are rolling along.

Bonnie takes stock of the well head (On the left of her)

Hence the hundreds of thousands of transplants from the most populous nation on earth. No one can ever accuse them of being slow to latch onto a good thing!

My route today is long. My second biggest day of the trip so far, at 485 miles or close on 780 km. The new tires make a huge difference. The roads are excellent and we make good progress. I had debated as to whether I should stay in Saskatoon, this would have been about 250 km shorter or to go through to Regina, the capital of Saskatchewan.

I am pleased that I have come all the way. Saskatoon, I passed through it on my way here, is not a particularly nice looking town. I would have booked at the Best Western. As I went past it I thought I had moved from Punjab to Rajasthan. These buggers are everywhere.

As one of my taxi drivers the previous day in Edmonton told me. The opportunities here are endless. Low population density, poor work ethics from the locals. Bad education system and poorly disciplined children. When you come from India you know what the word competition means. He has told his children to shape up or it is back to boarding school in India for a solid dose of discipline ensured with healthy amounts of corporal punishment and hard work. They have been back to visit their numerous cousins so they have got the message.

He has also told them no self-inflicted body mutilations. I had meant to comment earlier on young Canadians seemingly endless fetish to mutilate themselves. Almost everyone under the age of 40 has hideous tattoos, nose rings, eye rings, lip rings, silver arrows through their eyebrows and more. I wonder what is in their nether regions. Foreskin studs and vaginal clamps? I have to say that I find these debasements to be unappealing.

Saskatchewan is much flatter and less interesting than BC and Alberta. The prairie goes on forever. The Free State on Steroids. Not as many oil wells as Alberta  but it does have the largest Potash reserves in the world. This is a key ingredient in making fertilizer. I find it interesting that the Canadian government vetoed the takeover of the largest Potash producer in Canada, based here, by BHP Billiton. Now they are facing a quandary because a Chinese firm has made a multi Billion Dollar takeover bid for Alberta’s largest oil company. This and the Olympics are the biggest news here.

Once again many people stop to talk to me wherever I am. Bonnie is loaded and this creates interest. Once again everyone tells me their Doctor is South African. I wonder if there are any good doctors left in South Africa because the Canadians think that those who have come are the very best.
On arrival at my hotel in Regina, the first person who greets me is a taxi driver. One guess where he comes from? Hey man and all that stuff. Cool Bike, how much it cost?

I have decide to slow the trip down by a day. I am in danger of getting the “Horse is heading for home” syndrome and pushing myself too far ,too fast. Since leaving Valdez last Saturday I have ridden 2400 miles, nearly 3650 km, in six days for an average of aver 400 miles or 600 km a day. This is a lot of motorbike time.

So tomorrow, Friday 10 August that is, I am going to go to the RCMP, the Mounties Museum and Training Base, as it is a few blocks from the hotel I am staying at. It only opens at 10h00 and I plan to leave there at around 12h00.

This gives me a welcome sleep in. Not that I will be able to, as I am getting back to my normal early morning routine. The early morning is my time. Particularly in summer when I enjoy the cool air and stillness. Today I left at 08h00 and the temperature was cool and perfect until late morning, whereafter it started rising and peaked at about 85 F.

My route tomorrow takes me due South to the US border and from their through Minot to Devils Lake in North Dakota. Today was a 9-hour saddle day. Tomorrow will be more like 6 hours, so all going well, I will be there at around 18h00.

Because this is peak holiday season in the US, I have had to get a bit more organised. So I am booked tomorrow evening and on Sunday in Milwaukee, near the Ferry terminal. This is important as I am on the 06h00 ferry on Monday morning from Milwaukee to Muskegon in Michigan. There is a one-hour time change. The trip takes two and a half hours at high speed across Lake Michigan as opposed to a 350-mile ride around the bottom of the lake and through Chicago. This would be a twelve-hour day for me. By taking the ferry I will be home by 13h00 as opposed to about 20h00 if I rode the whole way. Also I will sit back across the lake and relax, coffee and a bagel for breakfast. I will sort out Saturday night on the road, probably in or near Minneapolis.

For those of you who are following the blog closely you should have noticed that my friend and mentor “Steekoog” is really getting into the swing of things. He has upped the ante in terms of the content of the responses and his stuff makes some great reading. Either I tell the Pinocchio story or he will, so here goes.

I am still a bit hamstrung by the “no names no pack drill” rule that DD has insisted on, but Steekoog has mentioned the individuals name. I will call him MB for short. MB was in fact short and not the most pleasant of characters. He was always very polite to me and I never had any problems with him. However he was well known for a couple of behavioral quirks, one of which was that he liked to appear to pick up the bill for dinner when the girls were around. Airline practice was to divide the bill by the number of people at the meal and for each participant to pay accordingly. His party trick was to tell everyone he would pay, mainly to impress the girls. Then as soon as it was cockpit crew only around, he would tell us that he was dividing the cost by the number of us and we would have to chip in. Needless to say this never went down well.

Any how this individual really fancied himself as a very natty dresser. Debonair would be an apt description. He regarded himself as the epitome of Pretoria male circa 1975 chic. One thing he could not cover up was his enormous and bulbous nose derived from his Dutch heritage.

So these two young and very new Boy Pilots were in London on one of their  first trips overseas. They were pretty overawed with everything. The cockpit crew stayed in the Holiday Inn in Edgeware Road, near Hyde Park Corner. They were in the lift in the way down when it stopped and the doors opened.

In stepped this individual, dressed in a Lime Green suit, light tan leather shoes, a light pink shirt, a bright pink tie and a Green British racing cap on his head. The ones with the very small peak in the front, like the toffs ( ISG) wear. It was not enough to obscure the  enormous nose that preceded him into the elevator. These two kids, wet behind the ears, looked at him in amasement. They could not believe their eyes. They did not have any idea that this was a very senior SAA captain.

Believing it to be safe to talk to each other in Afrikaans, the one said to the other, “Wie die fok dink hierdie doos dat hy is? Fokken Pinocchio!”

Loosely translated this means “ Who does this prick think he is, Pinocchio?”.

With this, the green clad man rose to his full height of about 5’8” and announced to them “ Ek Menere,  is Senior Kaptein MB!”. I gentlemen, am Senior Captain MB!

He told them to report to his room for a real shitting out. But the damage was done. The airline gossip mill went into overdrive. The story was back in Johannesburg within hours  and he shall forevermore be known as “Pinocchio”.

Steekoog also tells me that he has been in contact with the dauntless Dinah Taute of “Girls, if he calls you darling in the morning” fame. She is nearly 80 now but still full of the joys of spring. Expect some comments from her as well shortly.

So from Regina in Saskatchewan Canada, Good night and Good Luck

Copyright 2012