April 2nd, 2010.

Double checking the garage door, quick stop off for road brew and snacks and Saskabush here we come!

Exiting Edmonton means cruising with other gas guzzlers past refineries, Mordor as my brother calls it, and beyond to bone dry swamp lands.

Scraggly trees sit leafless, brown grasses and salt covered earth making for a desolate landscape.

“Dryer than the dirty 30s,” dad says.

“Land rape related,” I think.

Elk Island passes, bison grazing, as surreal as the dried branches resting in copses, like bones or some other kind of death remnant.

It’s Alberta alright. Oil and gas and beef and whatnot. Cowboys and cars and Oil City Bars where girls can score a cheaper drink in the ladies washroom. Like the Wild West. Dinosaurs in tarpits.