In roughly a week our second son graduates from university, so of course SWMBO’d and I are on our way back east for the big event. As well, it is my brother’s birthday at about the same time so we decided to travel from Calgary to Toronto via Delaware – not the most direct route, but at least it offered the advantage of being about to buy the US subsidised gasoline along the way. So far at least, it has ranged between 12 ¢ and 25 ¢’s per litre cheaper on the south side of the border for premium fuel than it is in Calgary, which really does add up on a long trip !
We crossed the border near Estevan in Saskatchewan and the last 50 km or so of travel into Estevan defines ‘flat’ – I think the highest point of elevation is the rail way track which runs along the highway ! In stark contrast, the area south of Estevan has been churned up a lot due to open pit coal mining over many years leaving heaps of over burden, rubble and small ponds etc., seemingly with nature left on its own as far as reclamation is concerned. As you move across North Dakota into Minnesota and then to Wisconsin the flatness and openness gives way more and more to rolling terrain and trees. In fact the over whelming impression one gets as you drive east towards the coast is that the lands formerly cleared by settlers for farming etc., have largely been reclaimed by woodlands, so that by the time you have got to Pennsylvania it has the appearance of being little else but forest. And in that forest are a lot of elm trees which obviously are making a bit of a comeback ! In the eastern side of Pennsylvania and up into New York there are signs of what I assume is Dutch Elm disease, with dead elms standing ghostly white here and there, but even so there are still many mature elm trees that seem to be doing just fine which is nice to see.
Our arrival in Delaware was uneventful and we will leave for Canada today, with a detour in the Kingston area to do a bit of genealogy research.