Driving The Rockies Sun, Jul 27. 2008
Oh it's an early morning, even when you're 2 hours behind your home timezone.
Unfortunately , due to Bill's mother's condition, and the uncertainty about him having to travel to Ottawa (painful irony), he's not joining Barb and I for the weekend in Jasper.
That said - Barb and I make a quick jaunt downtown to ... Downtown Camera to buy another CF memory card for me, since I thought one of my 4GB Extreme IIIs was dead (later I determine random, non-repeatable errors are a fact of life with $6 USB Card readers - whodathunkit?)
What impressed me about this store tho, is that as you walk in the door, there's a Nikon 800mm lens standing on a pricey Gitzo Tripod... and none of it's tied down - at all! Not much for security, but then you have to realize that setup would take about 3 minutes just to disassemble to be fit out the door. Impressive inventory, excellent customer service and the staff also knew the product very well. I watched a guy pickup about $20K in glass while I bought my 'measly' $67 Extreme III card; Alberta FTW - no sales tax. Just GST.
Mission accomplished. Doubly - I may have bought 2 cards
Let's hit the road... into the Rockies!
... Okay - the road hits back! After the hoodoos, you're pretty much getting into the Mountains and ... wow. Nothing does The Rockies any semblance of justice - other than to experience them.
We stop to see Lake Louise... since we can't park, Barb lets me go ahead and says she'll come find me. Unbeknownst to me while I'm snapping away - an hour passes and my phone doesn't work while Barb is calling me... Ooops
The rest of the drive I spend with my mouth agape. Really - there's no way to describe the Rockies.
Some mountain goats by the side of the road punctuate my ceaseless imagery.
We arrive at Becker's Lodging, have a delicious Filet Mignon dinner and settle in for the evening, relaxing while we watch Die Hard 2 on the TV.
Unfortunately , due to Bill's mother's condition, and the uncertainty about him having to travel to Ottawa (painful irony), he's not joining Barb and I for the weekend in Jasper.
There were trees... lots of trees...
What impressed me about this store tho, is that as you walk in the door, there's a Nikon 800mm lens standing on a pricey Gitzo Tripod... and none of it's tied down - at all! Not much for security, but then you have to realize that setup would take about 3 minutes just to disassemble to be fit out the door. Impressive inventory, excellent customer service and the staff also knew the product very well. I watched a guy pickup about $20K in glass while I bought my 'measly' $67 Extreme III card; Alberta FTW - no sales tax. Just GST.
Mission accomplished. Doubly - I may have bought 2 cards
Let's hit the road... into the Rockies!
... Okay - the road hits back! After the hoodoos, you're pretty much getting into the Mountains and ... wow. Nothing does The Rockies any semblance of justice - other than to experience them.
We stop to see Lake Louise... since we can't park, Barb lets me go ahead and says she'll come find me. Unbeknownst to me while I'm snapping away - an hour passes and my phone doesn't work while Barb is calling me... Ooops
The rest of the drive I spend with my mouth agape. Really - there's no way to describe the Rockies.
Some mountain goats by the side of the road punctuate my ceaseless imagery.We arrive at Becker's Lodging, have a delicious Filet Mignon dinner and settle in for the evening, relaxing while we watch Die Hard 2 on the TV.
Mini-Roadtrip to Drumheller Sat, Jul 26. 2008
Getting an early start, when you're not a morning person, is somewhat easier when reality is running 2 hours behind you. Today was a mini-roadtrip day: head out to Drumheller, check out the Royal Tyrell Museum amongst the badlands.
On the way back we visited Wayne Alberta, settlement withs 11 bridges and a total population of 27. Not particularly exciting.
Since I've not seen much of rural Canada outside of the Hwy 7/401/417 corridors, I was quite impressed at the scale of the farm operations on the way to Drumheller, single fields that rivaled the entire area of the experimental farm in Ottawa. And while there's some lumps on the ground (given the proximity to the Rockies), overall the terrain is remarkably flat. What was a little disheartened to see was a dearth of 'pump-jacks', y'know - those lumbering oil pumps with the rocking beam, Bill said there's more of them south of Calgary.
Is this rapeseed?
Landing in Cow-Town Fri, Jul 25. 2008
It took me almost an hour to figure out why the light coming in the windows of the Calgary airport looked so strange. Sure, my body thought it was almost noon – or even later, given how much earlier I woke up compared to usual... but the beautiful blue Albertan sky looked to be a certain shade of blue that I only ever see in one place: Through a polarizing filter on a camera, as if the glass of the large windows itself was polarized! I couldn't completely convince myself of that, but the apparent effect was so dramatic, I almost tweeted the thought; but all too quickly I was at the baggage claim and my Calgarian host was seeking me out.
Bill and Barb are what I imagine a distant relatives to be like: I don't see them very often, but when we do meet, it's always like family. See, Bill and my father grew up as boyhood friends in the same neighbourhood, and while Bill and Barb have lived in various far-flung places of the world, my dad and Bill have managed to always stay in touch – now facilitated by the convenience of the Internet, of course. And almost as long as I've been known of Bill's existence – he and Barb have been vigourously inviting me to come visit them in Calgary. Since I couldn't make the logistics work out with last year's Vancouver trip, I was determined to take them up on their offer this time. Weeks of strange negotiations, planning attendance of the upcoming weddings and talk of train-rides across the prairies and through the Rockies with zigzag return flights and doubling back, I did it.
So here I am, enjoying a comfortable summer's day in Calgary, finally realizing why the light looks so strange. Remember last year, how the running joke was about how far West I'd been? Well – I realized this is the furthermost North I've been, at least in the Western Hemisphere. I can't explain it any better, but even outside of the airport, the sunshine, the depth of the blue sky... just look different then they usually do.
The house is in a very neat area too, just north of downtown and a few paces away from the Bow Valley. Standing on cliff's edge there's a fantastic view of downtown, almost like a cross-section, it ends so abruptly, and over to the right, you can just see the snow-capped Rockies. I was initially impressed with the Cartesian road-way grid too: All roadways are numbered, streets run North-South, avenues run East-West. It makes thing so much easier to find than the CHMC-mandated hell that is Ottawa and Toronto spaghetti, but there's not much romance to the names... Of course, I've yet to discover how this all falls apart horribly in the suburbs.
Most of the day I spend in a zombie-like state as I've barely slept in the nights preceding this trip. The 2 hour timeshift works in my favour too, but I'm finding it difficult to stay up to even 10PM MDT, but there might be another reason for that.
When I think of Alberta, the obvious things come to mind: oil, no PST, the Rockies, flooding bodies of water, and farms. But there's something else to remember: backyard firepits. Sure, they're not legal anymore, but if you're grandfathered... well... let's just say it's worth keeping around!
Farms. Farms are where cows live. Cows get turned into steak. Alberta cows are good. Alberta beef is even better. Mmmmm.... steak.
I don't even remember what kind of cut of meat it was (sirloin? T-bone? striploin?) but I think I had a religious experience eating it... fresh, perfectly rare off a wood firepit with a good coating of grill-spice. My words do it no justice, but allow yourself to imagine the tastiest BBQ ever, then multiply that by OHMIGODTHISISGOOD.
Afterwards, while we sat around the fire, the folk festival started in the park – Sam Roberts set rang up from the valley below, it was pretty awesome. Before the fire went out, Bill helped me take this shot... I'll warn you now though, there was an air compressor, shirtlessness, and more fire.
Bill & Barb's loyal old Samoyed, Bear.
Bill and Barb are what I imagine a distant relatives to be like: I don't see them very often, but when we do meet, it's always like family. See, Bill and my father grew up as boyhood friends in the same neighbourhood, and while Bill and Barb have lived in various far-flung places of the world, my dad and Bill have managed to always stay in touch – now facilitated by the convenience of the Internet, of course. And almost as long as I've been known of Bill's existence – he and Barb have been vigourously inviting me to come visit them in Calgary. Since I couldn't make the logistics work out with last year's Vancouver trip, I was determined to take them up on their offer this time. Weeks of strange negotiations, planning attendance of the upcoming weddings and talk of train-rides across the prairies and through the Rockies with zigzag return flights and doubling back, I did it.
So here I am, enjoying a comfortable summer's day in Calgary, finally realizing why the light looks so strange. Remember last year, how the running joke was about how far West I'd been? Well – I realized this is the furthermost North I've been, at least in the Western Hemisphere. I can't explain it any better, but even outside of the airport, the sunshine, the depth of the blue sky... just look different then they usually do.
Downtown Calgary
The house is in a very neat area too, just north of downtown and a few paces away from the Bow Valley. Standing on cliff's edge there's a fantastic view of downtown, almost like a cross-section, it ends so abruptly, and over to the right, you can just see the snow-capped Rockies. I was initially impressed with the Cartesian road-way grid too: All roadways are numbered, streets run North-South, avenues run East-West. It makes thing so much easier to find than the CHMC-mandated hell that is Ottawa and Toronto spaghetti, but there's not much romance to the names... Of course, I've yet to discover how this all falls apart horribly in the suburbs.
Most of the day I spend in a zombie-like state as I've barely slept in the nights preceding this trip. The 2 hour timeshift works in my favour too, but I'm finding it difficult to stay up to even 10PM MDT, but there might be another reason for that.
When I think of Alberta, the obvious things come to mind: oil, no PST, the Rockies, flooding bodies of water, and farms. But there's something else to remember: backyard firepits. Sure, they're not legal anymore, but if you're grandfathered... well... let's just say it's worth keeping around!
I want one!
Farms. Farms are where cows live. Cows get turned into steak. Alberta cows are good. Alberta beef is even better. Mmmmm.... steak.
I don't even remember what kind of cut of meat it was (sirloin? T-bone? striploin?) but I think I had a religious experience eating it... fresh, perfectly rare off a wood firepit with a good coating of grill-spice. My words do it no justice, but allow yourself to imagine the tastiest BBQ ever, then multiply that by OHMIGODTHISISGOOD.
Afterwards, while we sat around the fire, the folk festival started in the park – Sam Roberts set rang up from the valley below, it was pretty awesome. Before the fire went out, Bill helped me take this shot... I'll warn you now though, there was an air compressor, shirtlessness, and more fire.
Augh! Half-Naked Bill!