One of my goals on this USA road trip is to gather some info about the average American's knowledge about GMOs in our food supply. I am calling the project "What do YOU know about GMO's?" and it consists of a five-question interview. I purchased a digital voice recorder so I can play reporter. If all goes well, I will continue this project once we return to Canada. (Please contact us if you would like to participate anonymously at alongthehearttrail@gmail.com ) I was pleasantly surprised when we made our very first stop on the US side of the border in Washington and saw these signs in an organic grocery store:
Montana is ginormous. Luckily it's also beautiful and has lots of interesting things to see. The pronghorn antelope are very plentiful and cute and seem to stay off the highways better than the deer. We made a stop in Butte, MT at sunset. The downtown has been carefully restored and maintained and it's really something! Also, we were puzzled by the giant glowing statue on one of the mountaintops nearby. Turned out it was a huge Virgin Mary called Our Lady of the Rockies. Who knew?
We stopped at a neato trading post across from the historical battlefield at Little Big Horn.
Sadly, we couldn't actually get a tour of the area. Government shutdown.
We listened to Glenn Beck on the radio and shook our heads as he listed the effects that the shutdown is having on US citizens. Mind boggling. He said that Mount Rushmore (as all national parks) was closed and that they went so far as to place cones along the highway so that passers-by can't even stop to look. What?? Needless to say, we settled for this postcard. If we hold it up and squint, it's pretty lifelike.
As soon as we crossed the border into South Dakota, suddenly there was about 2 feet of snow on the ground and the trees still had green leaves, but they were broken and mangled from the freakishly heavy early snowfall. We overheard a man at a rest area saying he was trapped for 3 days in a house with no power or water under several feet of snow. As we continued, we witnessed something very bizarre and quite gruesome. There were miles of lifeless, black cattle in snowy pastures. We saw dozens of them strewn about in the ditches and on the median between the highway lanes. We stopped for fuel and asked what happened as we saw a huge heap of carcasses in a pen just behind the gas station. Apparently, it snowed so hard and so fast and with such high winds that the cattle got lost and made their way over fences and many froze to death and/or suffocated in snow drifts. It was one of the eeriest things I have ever seen. And it smelled absolutely awful. Millions of dollars of cattle lost was what they said. I was more saddened for those poor cows than for the financial losses. What happened to human compassion?
On a lighter note, we drove late into the night last night and stopped in Mitchell, South Dakota because we really had to see the Corn Palace. That's right, it's a giant building with flashy lights and it's covered with corn cobs and corn stalks of various colors forming murals. As we stood and stared from the dark, empty street, two men in a pickup passed slowly by and one of them leaned out and declared "my life is now complete!!!" And we yelled back "us too!!" The campground manager called it the world's largest bird feeder. So corny.
Speaking of corn, it's currently whizzing by us mile after mile as we trek through the corn mazes called Iowa and Minnesota. I am certain that most, if not all of it is GMO seed. Since corn is wind pollinated, it would be nearly impossible to avoid contamination in open prairie like this. On the bright side, there are also thousands of wind turbines producing power which, to me, is a welcome change from the thousands of oil and gas wells and refineries dotting the Alberta and Montana and area. Winds of change...
This Saturday, October 12 is a the worldwide March Against Monsanto. We plan to march and we hope you will too. There are thousands of marches planned around the globe. Find a march in a city near you! If we don't start taking action, our food supply will be forever altered and the consequences will be unfathomable. Speak up. Every voice counts. Many nations have already said NO to these science exp If you aren't familiar with GMO foods, check out this quick explanation from Slow Food:
Re: The U.S. government shutdown....Hikers who had spent the summer of 2013 walking from Mexico to Canada on the Pacific Crest Trail (about 2700 miles), and whose approach to the Canadian border coincided with the shutdown, found themselves unable to continue along the Trail since it passes through federal lands. Some hikers opted to just quit, some continued along highways down in the valleys, a very few tried to sneak around the rangers. and at least one hiker was arrested and jailed for a short time in Canada when he entered the country at a place where recreational hikers are seldom seen. Thank you for your blog: it's a joy to read!
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