The Polar Bear

For a long time now, I've talked of buying Caroline an eternity ring, but the timing (and more importantly the financial situation) really haven't been right.

When I bought her engagement ring, I did so without her involvement. Hell, if the whole thing was going to be a surprise, I didn't exactly feel like the right way to go about it involved her telling me what it should look like. Caroline has always been more than happy with her engagement ring, but in the various discussions about an eternity ring (ahh the joys of shared finances) it had been decided that this time she would need to be involved. After all, it would have to fit with the rest of the bling.

Since being in Canada, we've heard a lot about Polar Bear diamonds and had discussed the fact that it would be a good part of an eternity ring and something special to take back home.

Well, events conspired in a number of ways and the jeweller that we had in mind had a closing down sale. We went in to see what they could do for us 2 days ago simply because of the sale and an hour later a plan had been not only hatched, but executed as well. It came down to the fact that they could put together a ring symbolising past, present and future, incorporating the diamond from Caroline's engagement ring along with a matching diamond sitting either side of a polar bear diamond. When the owner of the store said to us, "I suppose you would like it for Christmas?" we were done. We hadn't even considered the possibility of having something back in 2 days.

Sure enough though, we went in today and there it was, sparkling magnificently and ready for Christmas. We took it away and I wrapped it up, but given that it isn't really a Christmas present, more of a good God look how much i love you present, i only left it wrapped under the tree until just before mass.

Rather than describe just how lovely it is, I thought it easier to post this instead:

Deep Freeze

Winter has come back this week with a vengeance, just to remind us that whilst global warming might be a significant concern, there’s more than a little way to go before we start growing palm trees in the streets of Fort McMurray.

All week I’ve been waking up to the sound of the weather report saying happy things like, its currently -31 degrees and we’re going to get to a high of -24! I hate to correct them, but there’s no way that should be called a high.

The temperature first plummeted on Saturday last weekend, when we drove to Edmonton (having avoided the Friday night drive due to a blizzard that was dumping snow and wind all over the province and turning the roads to skating rinks). We navigated the road to Edmonton without incident (and were thankful that much of the drive was in daylight having not left until 7am (The sun rose at 9!). The 6 inch deep snow in the streets of Edmonton was an interesting experience though, with little two wheel drive cars skating their way around the city. Nothing like watching the car next to you at the lights trying to get moving with its rear wheels spinning as the back end of the car slides toward you.

One of the problems that you face when its that cold is that if you choose, like we did, to walk to the shops, you need to layer yourself up with clothes so that you don’t die of exposure getting there. Then of course, once you get inside the shop, they have the heat set to ‘Caribbean’ which means that you have to shed coats and things and carry them around the whole time you’re shopping and kids are so good at carrying their own coats!

The ride home was again uneventful, though there was that morbid fascination with watching the temperature drop on the dash … -20 …. -25 … it was about then that Emily said that she needed to go to the toilet. We were of course in the middle of nowhere. Fortunately she fell asleep and gave us a reprieve. Sam however decided he needed to go. So I told him it was -25 and asked if he could hold on. He assured me that he’d try. Of course half an hour later, Michael too needed to go and Emily had woken up again. Things were desperate so I pulled into a rest stop which happened to have a toilet (We were in the 200km, no services part of the trip). At this point it had plummeted to -30C.

We trooped in to the washroom to find that there were no lights. Fabulous. I happened to have a cigarette lighter in my pocket from starting cooking fires the last time I’d worn it and so used that to give us a faint glimmer with which to work by. It was a miserable little thing and of course, it kept getting too hot for me to sustain, so it was a comical little performance of light, hold …ouch. Light, hold … ouch, Light, hold … ouch! Emily quickly stripped her pants down her legs and sat down, only to quickly stand up again and say “Daddy, could you please get the ice of the seat?” Ahh the joys.

For the rest of the week, we’ve been facing those temperatures and being reminded daily of the little things that that means:

- Within moments, your lips are dry and cracked and you’re looking for that old chapstick you put somewhere last winter.
When your car has been outside all day, you really need to run it for a good 15 minutes before you want to get in because the seats are like frozen lumps of ice

- The LCD display on the car tends to be sluggish and confused for a while until it warms up (apparently the liquid in Liquid Crystal Display starts to suffer).

- When you do sit in the car, your breath not only fogs up the windows but forms ice crystals on the INSIDE of the window

- The tyres of the car are so cold that when you start driving you think you’re on old-fashioned solid rubber tyres and the suspension and all the lubricants squeak and groan as they warm up.

- It suddenly doesn’t matter how bad the thing you put on your head looks as long as it’s warm enough.

- Gloves aren’t just for girls and sissies anymore

- When you take off from the traffic lights you’re surrounded by insta-fog* and have to slow down to avoid hitting the hidden ‘truck in the mist’.

- All is good though, because it is supposed to warm up again (we’ll see) despite the fact that when I woke up this morning I was greeted by the radio happily announcing that its -39 outside right now and we’re heading for a high of -32!

I heard someone say, step outside with a smile on your face today and you’ll be smiling all day ... because your smile will be frozen there and you won’ change it no matter how you feel!

Skiing has been cancelled for the weekend (hell, its off the chart cold), but next week we might get warm enough to get to freezing rain! (See the 17th of December below – the white line is the average for this time of year)



Freezing rain was new one for us this year. Basically it means that it’s warm enough to rain, but cold enough that when it hits the ground, it turns to ice. We’ve seen it once so far this year and the footpaths were literally frozen over with ice, a nice slippery, glassy sheet of ice. It was bad enough that my traction control kicked in getting up the drive way. I’ll be happy if we don’t see more.

For now, the brass monkeys have packed their bags and headed South, sans orbs.


*Insta-fog – That’s what you get when you pump exhaust gases out the back of your car at -30C or so. It’s like an opaque cloud of fog enveloping everything behind you, kind of like the old cartoon black inky clouds that you’d expect to see come out the back of Dick Dastardly’s car in Wacky Races (yes, showing my age).

And that's why I'm the Godfather!

Received on Facebook

Sitting at the table last night and Cameron says "Uncle Dave is cool" out of the blue. "Why?" I say and he replies "becasue he can stick his tongue up his nose."

"So how is that cool I ask?" "Becasue he does not get boogy on his fingers"

Hahahahaha

Miscellany

Deer
I happened to look out the window during a meeting today (hey I live in a box without windows all day and don’t t see the sun, give me a break!) and happened to see two Mule deer walking past through the car park. Not something you see every day.

Twilight
No, I haven’t seen the movie. No, I haven’t read the book. Yes, I have seen too many publicity photos plastered across the web. All I have to ask is; Is it mandatory to have eyes that don’t open properly to feature as a teen heart throb in this flick? Take a good look: Stewart, Lautner and Pattison. Either they’ve dropped more drugs together than can possibly be good for someone, or they just missed out on getting eyes that open all the way up. Sure, I’m not the most photogenic bloke out there and hell my eyes aren’t exactly going to get my mug on the web, but I just can’t help but notice that in almost every photo I’ve seen of this trio, they all look whacked.

Irony
Fort McMurray sits amongst the second largest oil deposit in the world. Its in the form of Oilsands though, so we mine the sand, extract the bitumen and then turn it to crude. The crude gets sent elsewhere for processing. I can’t help but find it ironic though that whilst working in the second largest oil deposit in the world, the local petrol station ran out of fuel. Twice, in the last 2 weeks.

Fade to White

After the early dump of snow just before Halloween (what we like to call a Helen special) we’ve had a couple of weeks of unseasonably warm* weather. That meant that unlike the first two winters that we’d spent up here, the first blanket of white to lay itself over everything disappeared. We had a couple of weeks of mini-spring, IE mud.

Over the weekend we received another crisp white blanket of snow though, restoring things to what one would expect for this time of year. Saturday was overcast and it snowed for most of the day, but Sunday dawned bright and sunny> When the snow is crisp and fresh and the sun shines, it reflects of the thousands upon thousands of ice crystals in the snow and you’re treated to a gorgeous sparkling blanket. Right up to the point where the plough runs along the road, spraying all the dirt and grime from the road across it.

Of course, with the snow having arrived properly, it won’t be melting again this side of spring and so the colour has again drained from the world. The trees are bare and everything that isn’t vertical get’s its coat of white. That might be great news for the ski season (33 days until we head off to kicking horse!) But it’s not so good for the soul. Eventually the lack of colour, the constant cold and absence of the sun really start to wear you down. Which is why like last year, we’re planning an escape about mid-winter. Last year it was to Jamaica, this year, we’re flying to Florida before embarking on a Caribbean Cruise. It should be awesome (and for those that are counting – that would be me – its only 75 days away!)


*By unseasonably warm I mean that it was hitting highs of around +4 Celsius instead of lingering down around 4 or 5 below.

Fade to White

After the early dump of snow just before Halloween (what we like to call a Helen special) we’ve had a couple of weeks of unseasonably warm* weather. That meant that unlike the first two winters that we’d spent up here, the first blanket of white to lay itself over everything disappeared. We had a couple of weeks of mini-spring, IE mud.

Over the weekend we received another crisp white blanket of snow though, restoring things to what one would expect for this time of year. Saturday was overcast and it snowed for most of the day, but Sunday dawned bright and sunny> When the snow is crisp and fresh and the sun shines, it reflects of the thousands upon thousands of ice crystals in the snow and you’re treated to a gorgeous sparkling blanket. Right up to the point where the plough runs along the road, spraying all the dirt and grime from the road across it.

Of course, with the snow having arrived properly, it won’t be melting again this side of spring and so the colour has again drained from the world. The trees are bare and everything that isn’t vertical get’s its coat of white. That might be great news for the ski season (33 days until we head off to kicking horse!) But it’s not so good for the soul. Eventually the lack of colour, the constant cold and absence of the sun really start to wear you down. Which is why like last year, we’re planning an escape about mid-winter. Last year it was to Jamaica, this year, we’re flying to Florida before embarking on a Caribbean Cruise. It should be awesome (and for those that are counting – that would be me – its only 75 days away!)


*By unseasonably warm I mean that it was hitting highs of around +4 Celsius instead of lingering down around 4 or 5 below.

Learning

On wednesday of this week, we had a holiday for memorial day (the 11th of November and all the import that that implies). That however, is not the purpose of this post. Michael has had a project looming over him for a while that he wanted my help with as it involved constructing a moving vehicle. Having the day at home gave us some time to tackle it.

Whilst getting ready to do that, I came across Sam in his room who was very upset. Enquiries lead to the revelation that it was because he had some school work to do that involved having to draw some pictures. And he couldn’t draw them (must have inherited my lack of artistic ability). He was attempting to draw planes and birds, from scratch, with nothing to reference to help him.

It was a bit later on that this caused me to pause and think about the two different approaches that I was seeing between Michael and Sam.

Michael was very much in the mind set of getting the least amount of work possible done at the latest possible time so that he could devote his time to more enjoyable pursuits.

Sam on the other hand, unprompted was trying to tackle his homework and was upset because he couldn’t live up to his own exacting standards.

I helped them both, showing Sam a few tricks that would help him produce pictures of a quality he’d be happy with that didn’t involve the internet or a computer and he was happily on his way.

I also helped Michael to get his model constructed and working, as well as showing him a good way to document his design. Of course, once the model was built, Michael was happy to put the whole thing aside and move on to those more enjoyable pursuits. Sam plowed away at his homework (admittedly a less demanding task) until it was complete.

Michael needed some prompting to pull out the assessment guidelines to be sure that he was covering all his bases, but once prompted, at least took some time to look over it (well most of it) and make sure that he’d get a good result. It must be said that his chief concern was that the car that we’d made would go fast!

And then, there’s Tom. I feel for Tom, because Sam is usually coming home from school and telling us that he managed to get very high marks for his various tests. Michael doesn’t announce things in the same way, but he usually does very well. Tom doesn’t do badly, but with the legacy of his speech difficulties, things are significantly more challenging for him, so we build him up with his good results, hoping that he can focus on the fact that he’s doing well, rather than the fact that he can’t quite make it up to the extra-high standard of his brothers.

We’re all learning still.

delayed

Today (well it was when I wrote this ... 2 days ago now) was supposed to be a happy day, because Mum and Dad were going to be arriving in Fort McMurray to visit us. The obvious use of tense here gives away the fact that that isn’t going to happen. Apparently they missed their connection in Sydney by 10 minutes. I don’t know the details of why, but I blame Air Canada because they seem to be good at that sort of thing (I have no idea if it’s true or not, but they should have bloody waited!)

That means that having put the kids to bed full of the excitement and anticipation of Nanny and Poppa’s imminent arrival, they get to wake up to disappointment and an extra sleep added to the count.

The other highlight for this week was supposed to be the pool table that we’ve ordered for Christmas arriving at our door. Although it’s for Christmas, when we ordered it we were told that as they had a delivery already going to Fort McMurray on the 28th, they should be able to get it up there at the same time. That certainly had us excited.

Having heard nothing from them since placing the order, I thought that I’d check and make sure that it was still going to be arriving as planned. After all, we’ve all been looking forward to having the table in the house (it was quickly decided that there’d be no waiting until Christmas!) So I called through at lunch time only to be told “it seems that the delivery has been delayed and won’t arrive until the 2nd of November and of course that means arriving in Edmonton on the 2nd, so I asked when I could expect it to arrive in Fort McMurray. “Oh, I’m not sure, you’ll have to speak to your salesman about that, he’s at lunch just now and I’ll have him call you back.”

One day I’d just like to have someone give me some good news *sigh*.

eleven

Yes, it’s one of those posts. On the 16th of this month, Friday, Sam turned 11. I sat down to write about it earlier and managed to get as far as the title before things got in the way, but had to come back and mark the occasion. (I won’t have to stretch my brain on a birthday post until March after this … unless there’s a big call for one call Thirty Nine in February?)

What to say about Sam at 11? Well fortunately there’s nothing negative that I have to say. No running off and joining a gang or the like at this point. Sam is probably the quietest of the four kids. He keeps his head down and quietly plugs away at what ever work he has to do and needs little reminding. He managed honour roll again last year and from what I’ve seen of the start of this year, there’s no reason to suspect that he might not do it again. I have no concerns for him academically.

He’s been devouring my bookshelf this last year. I don’t quite recall which of the books it was that he really started to get into, but it took some convincing to get him onto the next one. He’d reached the end of a series and wanted something to read. I kept throwing Feist’s Magician at him, but it took several attempts. Of course, once he started, there was no putting it down. Between he and Michael, they’ve slowly been identifying the gaps in various series that I have. At first Sam seemed to be on a mission to find the book with the largest number of pages and that anything with less than 600 or so simply wouldn’t be acceptable. He’s come around now and will read almost anything. It might start to hurt me if we have to buy book at Australian prices one day.

Sports wise, Sam is all about minimization. He enjoyed soccer over the summer and played in the under 12 development team with Michael. That proved to be a bit much though when he had to do something soccer related up to four days a week. He was happy to play a bit, not a lot. He didn’t play ice sports last year and although he’s a good skier, isn’t interested in anything particularly organized. He simply doesn’t like having to put a swag of clothes on. He’s been holding out with the shorts as long as possible as the temperature here starts to slide. He’ll be playing indoor soccer this winter and skiing when he feels like it. He’s also playing volleyball again at the moment (school sport is weird here) and I think again that one of the reasons that he likes it is that he gets to take clothes off rather than put additional clothes on in order to participate.

Sam hasn’t quite clicked with the Canadians though has made a couple of friends. There doesn’t seem to be anyone that would fit a best friend category and I think that he’s pretty much put that sort of thing on hold, pending a return to Australia. Of all the kids, Sam is the one that has most explicitly stated that he wants to go home.

Just this morning we were talking over breakfast and he said that what would be really good was if we could be home for his birthday next year (this was his third in Canada) but still get to be here for Halloween. That’s one little holiday I think our kids will miss when we go home (though I suspect its all about the candy!)

Speaking of breakfast, one of the unexpected joys of Sam’s volleyball is that the practice is usually before school, so he has to be there between 7:15 and 7:30am. That means that I get to drive him there. There’s something special about getting to have an early start to the day with Sam. He’s a good morning person generally and when you get him one on one like that, happy to have a chat and tell you things that might otherwise be lost in the noise of a busy family.

So on Volleyball days, we eat breakfast together and take a quick trip to school. It’s got to be one of my favourite times of the week! It’s a time when I’m reminded of his ever growing maturity, his imagination, fragility and the complexity of his evolving personality.


Happy Birthday Sam!

Oh Shit.

One of the main reasons for getting to Edmonton was to shop prior to winter. We went through the outlet stores on Saturday and on Sunday, headed off to the West Edmonton Mall.

Of the unacquainted, it’s the fifth largest mall in the world (and the largest in North America), has an amusement park, a water park, mini golf, an ice rink …. etc etc. We thought we’d get the shopping out of the way first and then take the kids to the water park as we hadn’t been back there since the very first time.

As we shopped, we started running into fellow Fort Mac based Aussies who like us had taken the opportunity to bugger off for the long weekend. So it was that I found myself chatting in Gap Kids, with the kids looking at clothes (um yeah, sure, so some of them were just terrorizing each other and everyone in the store – its LIKE looking at clothes) and Caroline was trying to sort out payment.

I looked around to do the obligatory head count as it had been a while. Michael? Check. Samuel? Check. Thomas? Hmmm, oh wait, there he is … Check. Emily …probably in a change room with 436 different things to try on. I chatted a bit longer as I continued to scan the shop looking for her. I couldn’t find her and checked with Caroline if she’d seen her. Nope. The people we were chatting to? Not for a while. The heart notched itself up just a fraction (after all, I was used to not seeing a kid for a bit and finding them hiding in the middle of clothing display or sitting down out of the way waiting) and I started to search the store. It’s at the point you start calling out your child’s name that other people start to take a bit more interest.

It’s when you think you’ve looked through the entire store and all the change room that your heart accelerates to the point where its beating is like a drum placed within the ear canal. When you check just outside the store and there’s now collectively 6 adults looking and you still haven’t found her, headlines start to work their way into your conscious despite your best efforts to continue calmly looking.

The staff at Gap closed the doors so that she couldn’t’ get out without us noticing, Caroline had raced off outside to start searching the mall (hey, there’s only about 800 shops and 570,000 square metres to look through). I rounded up the boys and started to describe (and wonder) what she was wearing so that security could be informed. Thomas quietly enquired if Patrick could come back to our campsite.

Before things could get too bad, we had a call back from security to tell us that they had Emily. I think there must have only been 2 minutes pass between the call being made from gap and getting that call back. You know you’re looked after when that happens. The things I think about that could have been alternatives are simply too horrible to even write about.

I called Caroline to let her know and was escorted to security where I was instantly clung to and somewhat relieved.

I didn’t even stop to ask where they’d found her or who had brought her there, I was simply too happy to have her hanging on and not letting go. I was impressed with the way the Gap staff handled the situation as well. I just hope that’s not from lots of practice, because no one really needs to go through that!

Optimist vs Pessimist

This weekend just gone was Thanksgiving here in Canada. It’s a good concept for a holiday, but I find that having not been brought up with it, it’s a little hard to really go all out for. Though having said that, it did provide us with a long weekend and thus a chance to escape The Mac.

With winter not so much looming as crashing down around us, we also saw it as the last chance for the year to get away in the Caravan. We considered a number of options and ended up deciding that we’d go to Edmonton. Growing kids facing a new winter meant a need for some clothes that would extend beyond knees and elbows and as I kept an eye on the deteriorating forecasts, it also meant that if things got a little too chilly, we should be able to get into a hotel.

Weather was my chief concern for the trip as I tend to get a bit nervous about icy roads between here and Edmonton and facing the trip with the caravan as well, you might say that I was shit scared. I was watching the weather, and road reports in the days leading up to the drive and the pessimist in me saw the worst: snow everywhere, sections of roads marked as being in poor condition and general hysteria inducing conditions. When I got home Wednesday I was suggesting that maybe we should be planning a hotel trip rather than the caravan.

The optimist in Caroline laughed in the face of my ‘childish fears’ (my words, not hers) because when she looked at the reports, she didn’t see it from quite the same perspective. I saw patches of road in poor conditions and roads showing conditions to be ‘unkonwn’. To me, the pessimist, an ‘unknown’ condition report means that it could be in a devastating condition, it could be so bad that the bloke that was supposed to report it is stuck in the ditch because of all the black ice that he’d driven over. To Caroline, the optimist, it simply meant that the road was perfectly fine because ‘if there was anything to report, someone would have reported it.’

The fact that it was snowing as I drove home on Saturday afternoon to commence the journey only reinforced my fears, but under the assurances of my optimistic wife, the caravan remained shackled to the back of the car and off we went, snow gently cascading about us. It was only a bit of a flurry, not too bad and the road itself was dry, so that was a good thing.

It also happened to be bloody windy. Big gusty winds kept trying to shift us sideways, which to me, the pessimist, meant that if I hit some ice, there’d be a nice helping sideways shove just at the right time to throw me in the ditch. After the first hour of driving I was able to relax a little. The snow was still falling and the wind was still blowing, but I’d come to terms with it a little and the white knuckle factor was down to a 3/10.

Of course, Caroline was ok, because it was going to get better, but I expected that worse was to come. I was right.

We stopped for dinner 200kms out of Fort Mac and Caroline went in to order while the kids and I waited in the car. And as the sun disappeared over the horizon and it got darker, we waited some more. It was somewhere around there that I turned the light on in the car to keep reading and noticed that the car lights were still on. I’d turned the ignition off though to save fuel, so when Caroline came back and we went to take off, all I got was ‘tick tick tick’. No ignition. Fortunately the girl behind the counter had jumper cables and we were off again in short order. Of course, that wasn’t the ‘worse’ that I’d been expecting.

As we continued our journey through the dark, the snow started to get heavier. If you’ve never driven in snow at night, let me set the scene for you a little. Unlike rain, snow doesn’t hit the windscreen unless its really wet heavy snow and you’re moving at a slow speed. With the powdery snow that we get up this way, as you drive through it, it get’s picked up in the airstream over the top of the car and flies up and over the roof before it ever hits the windscreen. And unlike rain, when the headlights hit the snow, they’re just reflected and your visibility drops dramatically, quicker than is experienced with rain.

The interesting and fun part of it is that as the snow is picked up by the headlights and flies ‘straight at you’ (as a result of driving into it of course) you start to feel like you’re in a star wars movie, because as the snow flies toward you, its just like when they go into hyperspace in star wars and all those white lights suddenly fly past you on the screen. The bad thing is that as it gets denser and denser, you simply can’t see down the road enough. On this occasion, it was bad enough that with no oncoming traffic and no one in front of me, it got to the point that I couldn’t tell where the edge or middle of the road was and whether there was a corner ahead or not. The road turned totally white within minutes as we were enveloped in our own little mini-blizzard.

The white knuckle factor at this point was a solid 10/10. It was going to take some seriously industrial strength extraction to remove my hands from that steering wheel and I felt like my heart wasn’t so much beating the crap out of the inside of my chest, but had more like left my chest cavity, tapped me on the shoulder and leapt out the window with a cheery wave. I could feel the tension in places that had no reason to be tense whilst driving the car, not they cared, they tensed up anyway.

I would have stopped, right then and there had there actually been anywhere to stop, but there was no shoulder to speak of (not that I could tell shoulder from actual road) and it was more likely that someone would crash into us blindly if we were stopped than moving. I took comfort from the fact that when I dared to take a micro second long peek in the mirrors all I could see was a string of headlights behind me about 30 cars long. As I crawled at about 40km/hr, they weren’t going anywhere and so for someone to hit me, they’d have to go well out of their way.

We survived. The snow backed off after probably all of 10 minutes, even if it felt like it had been three hours and we made it all the way to Edmonton where I got to set up the van with the snow quietly (and not densely) falling around us. We cranked up the furnace, crawled into our beds and welcomed ourselves to sleepy bobos!

Of course on the way back, as we left to come home, it started snowing again. As we drove, it got worse. Caroline made a comment like, “I didn’t expect it to be this bad.”

I calmly told her that as resident pessimist, I didn’t think it was as bad as it was going to get and that the 5-10cm of snow that had been forecast for the city on Tuesday was more than likely to arrive early to make the drive once more a nightmare. Fortunately, I was wrong. The drive home was pleasant and we were able to appreciate the beauty of the fresh snow, with a gorgeous fall (that would be autumn for most of you) backdrop, the birches in full colour

Winter is Coming Here?

This weekend coming up is Thanksgiving here in Canada, which for us, means an opportunity to flee the Mac in search of some fun somewhere else. We’ve elected to head down to Edmonton to get some pre-winter shopping in so that the kids are ready to head off to school through the cold and snow. We might just manage to take them to the water park at the West Edmonton Mall or sneak in a moving or something as well.

It was also going to be our last trip away in the caravan before we had to winterize it. Yes, in Canada, unlike back home, we don’t keep using the thing through the winter. There is in face a requirement to do a couple of things to prepare for abandoning your van from the months that the snow is on the ground (yeah, 6 of the bloody things at least!) It has something to do with the effects of below zero temperatures on water. If you happen to forget about it, you leave water in all your lines, the water pump, the water heater, the shower hose, the toilet piping … and of course water expands as it freezes. Not a good idea. So we have to put antifreeze through all of the lines.

We had planned to winterize at the end of our trip, but as I mentioned once before in this blog, fall doesn’t seem to last all that long here and the first flurries of snow actually came through Fort Mac yesterday. And for the rest of this week, we’re facing temperatures hovering around the freezing point. In fact when I clambered leapt gazelle-like from the bed this morning, it was at -5C. So before I left for work, panicking slightly due to the fact that we’d not yet drained any tanks or lines in the van, I turned on the taps and the water pump to have them eject a trickle of mushy water. Not good.

I had to leave it like that to go to work, but am fortunate enough to have a super star wife who during the day made her way underneath with a hair dryer to thaw the drain line so that she could get the tank to empty. What a trooper!

So now, the winterizing is mostly done (I’ll have to move the van to get the slide out to access the water heater when I get home) and we’ll just have to hope for improved driving conditions tomorrow on our way south and not use any water! Sounds like a hoot. At least they’re not predicting lots of snow over the weekend, just not very warm temperatures.

nine

Today, being the 2nd of October, marks the 9th anniversary since the closing ceremony of the Sydney 2000 Olympics. Or maybe that’s 9 years and a solitary day extra. The reason that this little tidbit of information happens to lurk near the fore front of my mind is of course because on that occasion 9 years ago, Thomas decided that he’d had enough of the snuggling in the womb activity and wanted out.

So whilst watching the closing ceremony for the Olympics, Caroline quietly arranged for Michael and Sam to have a sleep over at Oma and Opa’s, let her parents know that things ‘might be happening’ and we toddled off home to our place. It was some time early in the morning that we made the trip in to the hospital for the commencement of true excitement.

Anyway, 9 years on and we were greeted this morning with a very chirpy young chap (whom I suspect made it out of bed at 5am) quietly enquiring as to what time he had been told he was allowed to come in and see us to receive loot presents. Being that it was at that time 6am, I informed him that I had told him 6:30 so he could go away and come back later on. Had it been later than 6am when I was asked, and had my brain been firing on more than 25% functionality, I would have told him to come back at 7!

Between running off to get dressed, find the cameras and wake up the older brothers, Caroline regaled the happy chap with the tale of the end of the Olympics er, his birth day. Then he tore into the paper that so inconveniently hid the contents of the presents with a grin from ear to ear.

After another year in Canada, Thomas continues to grow up. He’s an avid builder of Lego, especially star wars and can often be found tinkering in his bed late at night when he’s supposed to be asleep. He’s also developed some of the passion for reading that permeates the family which tends to be both a blessing and a curse. A blessing because we all want our kids to read a lot, a curse because he uses the ‘I have to do my homework reading’ as an excuse to delay the drift to Noddyville when we boot him up the stairs for the night.

He continues to be an avid hugger, for which I am thankful and is in fact the most adventurous eater of the four kids, willing to try almost anything at least once and often surprising us with what he likes.

I don’t know that there’s a lot more for me to say at this point, so I’ll just end with Happy Birthday Thomas.

Thinking of Texas

When I first started writing this blog way back in 2001 I really had no audience nor awareness of what the intended audience for my blog would be. Since then, I’ve found that on a number of occasions, I’ve had to stop and think before I let the tirade forth. Perhaps it means that things aren’t as honest as I would really like them to be, but in a world where people have lost jobs for what they’ve put in a public sphere, one has to be a little circumspect. This was, to some extent one of those times. Perhaps I haven’t let it all out, but when it comes down to it, at this point in time, this is about letting friends and family know what’s going on in our lives. I try to inject a little humour at the appropriate times and every now and then I might even pull out something obscure, but I find when it comes to talking about what’s going on with work I have to limit it to a more factual rather than emotional accounting of what’s going on. Having said all that …

I’ve been a little distracted over the last couple of weeks. As a result of a number of things, I recently decided that I’d kind of had enough of what I am currently doing work wise and that it was time to pursue a change.

A discussion or two later about how this could be achieved and what the options were and suddenly it was looking like things could possibly happen even quicker than I had imagined. Apparently one of our US companies has won a couple of contracts (or hoping to in the very near future) and that may have opened up a chance to get back into contract management. It would also have meant a slight change in scenery.

I’d made some phone calls and due to the vagaries of catching senior management across international time zones, hadn’t actually heard anything for a week or two. Then just when you think, “Either this isn’t happening or I need to make another call,” you get some information. Another call or two later and just as you’re about to pack the kids in the car and bugger off camping for the weekend, you get a phone call from the States that leaves you thinking of Texas.

Apparently one of the opportunities that’s about to open up is located down South in the Lone Star State and with winter fast approaching us here in the soon-frozen North, dreams of a big house with a swimming pool and a nice cheap Porsche or BMW in the driveway began to infiltrate my mind.

So this morning, it was time to dust off the CV and broadcast it South to see what might eventuate.

And of course, whenever you do that, the fun really begins. Shortly after sending it I caught up with my boss up here (as promised) to let him know how things were going. I was quickly told that his conversations with our current client about potentially releasing me indicated that they should be able to make me available about July. July 2010. Yep, 9 months from now.

Talk about an instant stop on all those warm weather fantasies. Its straight back to planning for -40C again. I think New Year’s skiing, Disneyworld and a Carribean cruise might have to be in the works this time round. Anyone care to tag along?

Syphilis

No, don’t be alarmed, it’s not what you think. I don’t have it. Um, yeah, well anyway, I think I mentioned some time back the levels of general amusement that were reached when I watched medically related advertisements on North American TV, well the other day I nearly drove off the road.

I was on my way home when an advertisement came on the local radio station (which I try to avoid via podcasting of Triple J and BBC Radio 1) to mention that Fort McMurray has the highest rate of syphilis of any city in Canada. Lovely. I mean this is a bit different to Triple J covering some of the topics that they do, because that is a radio station that’s aimed at a particular demographic (one I’m quite certainly no longer a part of) where as this is the equivalent of SAFM back home.

Its just delightful to hear an add about a sexually transmitted disease on the local station, signing off with: “Syphilis, its back! Get tested!”

Tasty what?

GPS

I hear stories about people that buy GPS units for their cars and how it saves them a world of hurt. The theory goes that pre-GPS, there are poor directions, miscommunication, angst, even the occasional disagreement or suggestion of inability to read maps.

It sounded like a good idea to me, especially for those times that one wants to do something crazy like drive around LA (we had one for that trip and it was indeed a saving grace) and so I thought I’d get me some of that ‘eliminating directionally challenged discussions action’. We bought a GPS.

Now I should, in fairness mention that Caroline was never a bad navigator, nor directionally challenged and together we’ve managed to find our way all over Europe without the assistance of the new fandangled technology. However, it couldn’t hurt to have something that you just program and follow without having to resort to the map every time you get somewhere new right?

Well it turns out that I apparently have ‘better than GPS’ because whenever it gets turned on, Caroline pulls out the maps anyway and decides that where ever it is going to take us (and it doesn’t matter if it’s in fastest or shortest route mode) it simply isn’t as good as the route that she is going to take us on. So we don’t have discussions about being lost, we just drive along ignoring the instructions and watching the thing re-route itself to suit the whims of the more determined!

Apparently the technology takes information from thousands of users and massive data banks to determine which route you’re going to follow. Well I’m tending to think of them as ‘could have been’ routes. It could have been quicker, or it could have been shorter, but there’s no way I’m ever going to know! After all, we’ve got a map. Surely that’s better than some fancy shmancy satellite gizmo.

At least if I’m ever left to drive somewhere on my own, I can just set and forget and live with the consequences.

And the Adventure Begins ...

This week, Emily (finally) attended school all day for the very first time as she embarked on the adventure that is year 1.

There is of course mixed emotions with the youngest of the clan reaching this milestone. There’s the elation that a stay a home Mum might be tempted to indulge in as she is left with four whole days of the week where she has the opportunity to do what ever she likes for 6 hours a day (even if it is cleaning). There’s the realization that another step has passed, that there’s another kid to pester into doing homework and of course that time marches inexorably on.

Mostly its been very positive. Emily is at the same school that she attended kindergarten, so there weren’t any real transitional traumas and given her age and level of intelligence, I’d say that on the whole, she was excited by the prospect of getting to go to school and continuing to grow her fledgling knowledge.

Then last night, after day 3 of school, I went to put Emily to bed. She was most upset and told me that she needed to see Mummy. Caroline happened to be playing golf, so I told Emily that she’d not get home for a while longer yet, so she would have to put up with me (which in the past has been more than sufficient to keep her happy). She wasn’t going to have a bar of it and was very distraught. I took her upstairs, read her a story, made sure that she had ‘little husky’ and she seemed to have calmed down, but at the prospect of my leaving, the blubbering began again. What caught me by surprise was that this was real blubbering, not that fake, I’m winding you around my finger stuff that I usually get.

I probed a little to try and discover its source and asked if something had happened at school. Well that set her right off. First she just clammed up and then the tears flowed. I was worried that someone might have been picking on her (though its hard to believe that Emily would let that happen) but it turned out that someone had told her a scary story about their friend’s sister who had ended up dead (or something along those lines). Either way, it had her petrified and only Mummy coming home was ever going to fix it.

At the point that she said to me, “Can I stay home from school tomorrow?” with fear all but oozing from the pores of her skin, I was crushed. I wanted to find out who the little bugger was that had told her the story and go pay them a visit. I would have done a little more than tell a scary story too. As it stands, Caroline got home and managed to settle the little girl and she slept soundly right through the night. I haven’t yet heard how she got on in getting her to school.

Pets

So far, we’ve managed to avoid the accumulation of any animals in our house other than Jack the Cat who resides with the in-laws back in Australia. He’s been there long enough now (since we extended the house) that its hard to even really think of him as our cat. As the children grow older though, there’s mounting pressure for us to get some thing for them to torture bestow their love upon other than their parents (let’s face it we’re sure to be well on our way down the ‘cool curve’ at this stage).

One of the good things about having moved overseas is the ability to use the excuse that we can’t have a pet because we won’t be able to take it back to Australia. Hell, we might be able, but if someone else isn’t going to foot the bill, I’m not forking out for furry removals!

Emily may very well melt at the sight of anything fuzzy and cute, but even that hasn’t managed to sway me thus far.

Things did get dangerously close though. A couple of weeks ago Michael and Sam went to a science camp (camp over here does not involve sleeping there) and amongst all that happened, there, came home deciding that they had found a pet that they wanted.

A snake. Of course, what else would it be? When they excitedly told me about it, I asked if they had asked their mother (knowing full well what to expect).

“Yeah and she didn’t say no!” came the excited response. Emily and Thomas had even been there when Caroline had gone to pick the boys up, so they’d seen the snakes as well. So the limiting factor quickly became the ability to import the little critter into Australia. Turns out that getting them in is about as easy as getting them out (though probably more legal if you actually do it right) so for now, we are continuing with our pet free journey.

Of course, I personally believe that we should get it and just let it free when we leave if we can’t find someone else that wants to take it off our hands ... its only a tiny little corn snake after all.

Tour de Birchwood

Last year there was an event in Fort McMurray that we didn’t take part in, but arrived at the end of as we decided to go for a family walk. It was a family orientated bike race through the birchwood forest and it looked like a lot of fun.

So this year, when it popped up again, we decided to take part. The kids got to go first, round a short 1km loop that went through the forest for 500m or so and then back along a bitumen path. Emily and Thomas’ age group went around once, Michael and Sam’s three times.

I missed Thomas’ as I was back home fetching the rest of the bicycles that we’d need to compete. Things were looking good for us because there was only about 5 adults enrolled. Possible prizes loomed.

Thomas enjoyed his short run so much that he went round with the big boys. I’m sure that part of that stemmed from the disappointment that was evident when he told me passionately that he would have come second or third if someone had knocked his stand down! He came in fifth. In the big boys race he cruised, saving himself for a final burst through to the crowd at the finish somewhere near the back of the pack. Michael and Sam came in fourth and fifth in their race.

Then came the adult race. An hour before the race there was probably 6 people going to be involved and I was looking forward to a nice quiet roll through the forest.

Then the lycra showed up.

Obviously these people were seasoned campaigners, showing up some 3 hours after the sign in deadline with their fancy bikes and lycra clad muscle bound bodies. Caroline and I exchanged knowing looks. Yep, hello last place.

Caroline took the kids home because they didn’t want to wait the hour and a half until our race after theirs. I spent some of that time talking to the people from the bike club that had organized the event and they let me know about some of the fun that we had to look forward to. Apparently there was going to be a bit of mud down the bottom of the gully but that there were some pallets and planks and things that had been put down to help get us through.

The time for the race rolled around and Caroline and I lined up at the back of the pack, happy to let the lycra brigade have their lead. As we took off through the first part, things weren’t too bad at all, cruising along on the flat, through the trees, I found myself moving past the first of the girls and even getting into the back of the guys’ pack. I was watching the odometer on the bike, knowing that the race was ‘only’ 15 kilometres long and therefore counting down those that were left as I attempted to measure the beats that were remaining in the old blood pump. There was a bit of mud in some of the dips, but nothing that would cause any concern. I was starting to think that this wouldn’t be so bad after all, even if some of those people I’d made my way past were now in front of me again.

And then we went down the hill. Now the the bastard part of this is that normally, down the hill means hands off the brakes and cruise. But the path was narrow enough and steep enough that going fast simply wasn’t an option.

And that’s when we hit the mud. Sure there were planks. Sure there were pallets. But somewhere in the discussion no one seemed to think to mention that the mud would be something like 3 inches deep! Or that to get onto a pallet, you’d have to get through a metre of the mud and then basically jump up onto the pallet. Or in fact, that some of the stretches of the mud would go for 20 metres! Sometimes I made it, sometimes I didn’t. And the biggest problem with the didn’ts was that it meant that I ended up walking through the mud and caking it onto my shoes. I wasn’t worried about getting dirty, but when you’re staring up a hill that is seemingly endless and more cliff like with every fading beat of your heart, it’s a bit bloody hard to pedal when your foot slides off every time you put the pressure on!

Needless to say, there was some pushing of the bike up the hills and at times, I was well and truly reminded of the time that I went and did a triathlon with exactly no training for it, because that was how much training I’d done for the bike race.

But I finished. Heart pumping, legs shaking, with a burst at the finish to get a second ahead of the guy that had been in front of me I sailed across the finish line in some 39 minutes. I expected something of a wait for Caroline based on how hard I’d found it, but she came across in 44 minutes, far from last place.

We had survived the tour de birchwood.

Yellowstone Pt 5. - The Long Road Home

Having seen much of the Yellowstone park by this point in time and having driven a bloody long way to get there, we thought that we should at least spend a day seeing the Grand Teton National Park seeing how close it was relative to our Fort Mac abode.

So once again, we piled the kids in the car and set out to drive. Straight into a traffic jam. Yep, even in the national parks those lovely folks that keep things running need time to repair roads. So we spent the first hour or so of our day alternately stopped and crawling through the traffic, knowing that the end of the day was going to look much the same. Yippee.

It had been hoped (and hyped) that we would get to see a lot more wildlife in the Tetons as the park was expected to be less busy than the better known Yellowstone, but by the time that we’d driven from one end of the park almost to the other end, including a stop for lunch over-looking a gorgeous lake, mountains seeming to rise up from the interface there hadn’t been anything particularly exciting to see (ie nothing we hadn’t managed to spot already).

The big hope for the whole day was to see a moose (or more … meese? I think not). So having reached the end of the park we stopped at the visitor’s centre and Caroline asked about where we should go to see them and what the best time of day was. Of course the best time of day was dusk (by which time we had firm intent of being ensconced around the campfire with a beverage or two) but we hadn’t been through the best part of the park for spotting them yet.

There had also been hopes of fitting in a white water rafting ride, but through the Tetons this was offered more as a ‘drift’. This may have provided a great way of seeing moose, but I wanted the rush of blood that would come with the white water. Add to that the prospect of the exercise taking 3 hours and finishing around dinner time and it just proved too much to consider. After all, we still had to get back through all the construction work.

We buckled ourselves back in the car and took an alternate route back to Yellowstone, stopping for a walk, always hoping for the elusive moose, but by the time we were out of the Tetons, we hadn’t spotted one. We crawled back through the road works, made it to camp and at least managed to enjoy our dinner.

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I thought that it was about time that I managed to finish off the last part of our Yellowstone trip and so once again I find myself sitting around a camp fire with the computer, blogging. This time we’re at Faucet Lake (no, I don’t know if it’s shaped like a tap).

We departed Yellowstone and began the long trek home (well, the destination was actually Drumheller, from where Caroline would deliver me to an airport and I would fly back for work for a week. We passed through the endless trees of the park again, Caroline peering hopefully, desperate for a glimpse of that elusive moose. We only struck one animal-jam on the way out and it wasn’t too bad. There’s a small section of road that is labeled no stopping because it’s a bald eagle reserve. There happened to be some bald eagles present so of course people stopped and took photos.

We drove all the way through Montana and back to the border crossing without anything untoward or worthy of note happening with the intent of trying to camp at Writing on Stone Provincial park. We hadn’t booked or anything, we just though that we’d rock up to a really popular park in the middle of the peak tourist season and stay the night. Well we managed to get as far as the town before Writing on Stone and there was a lovely sign posted saying that their RV park was full. Bugger.

We went to the RV park in the town that we were in, thinking we’d just stop there (after all, it was about 10:30pm at this point in time but they were full as well. We were offered the opportunity to pay $12 for the privilege of setting up in their carpark for the night, but declined such loving hospitality.

Instead, we drove on, hoping to find a park somewhere else. We found the small town of Warner which had a lovely little lions park in it (with all of about 12 sites) and so stopped and set up at 11:30pm, once again glad not to be in the tent trailer. Everything was great until about 7:30am. That was when we were woken by a deep base rumble that seemed to resonate through our very bones. One of those things you don’t notice when its 11:30pm at night is just how close you are to the local rail siding. Two lovely diesel locos, travelling as a light engine had pulled in to the siding and there they sat, idling. Their arrival had seemed to pass about a foot outside the door of the van so loud and close was it, but in reality there was probably a good 200m to the siding. Yippee. We were up fairly soon after that, because those locos were waiting for something and no one was about to shut them down while they waited. At about 10;30 a freight train passed trough and I said to Caroline that they were probably waiting for the cross and would be off soon. Well when we left the park an hour later, they were still there and still idling.

We made it to Drumheller and set up camp, excited that the next day, we’d get to see the dinosaurs.

Ever since last year’s aborted attempt to see the Royal Tyrrell Museum I have been hanging out for a chance to get back there and really not expecting to get the opportunity and so I was insisting that we be there as soon as they opened. Well of course that didn’t happen, but we weren’t too far off and enjoyed getting there before most of the crowd.

Caroline signed everyone up for a fossil casting session which was good fun and then we continued our exploration. I’ll attach some photos because it really was awesome.

And then of course I was dropped off at the airport and abandoned the family in Drumheller as I returned to work. Lucky me.

Yellowstone Pt. 4 – The big one.

Invigorated by the previous day’s fishing experience, and completely over the whole geyser thing, by the time that we got back to camp, the kids were extremely keen to try out their own rods and lures in the lake that our camp site backed onto.

Everyone seemed to split off and go their own way for a few moments. We were starting the fire ready to cook our dinner (there is nothing better than damn good steaks over an open fire) Caroline wanted to get the kayak out on the lake, keen to try a spot of fishing and the boys were all off to the lake edge with their rods.

So it was that I found myself alone at the camp, watching the fire, beer in hand and a few moments peace.

That in itself is of course a recipe for something to happen. Because you can’t have four kids and expect a quiet beer around the campfire early in the evening. It just doesn’t work. Thus, as I sat contemplating life’s grand puzzles, like how empty was my beer and should I bother moving my arse to get another just yet, the sound of kids casting lines into the lake and retrieving them almost entirely dismissed from my consciousness, the peace was broken by the sound of Caroline calling me from the kayak. As may can tell from the photos, I didn’t exactly have vision of what was going on either out in the lake or along the shoreline, which dropped about 2-3 metres from the level of where we camped.

Now admittedly, the first thought wasn’t all that complimentary, but the call was persistent enough that I knew that I was going to have to do something other than just screech “What?” back across the lake. The fact that Caroline’s voice was soon added to by a stranger saying something along the lines of “Is Sam’s Dad there?” had me moving a little more quickly.

The fact that the next thing I heard was “Sam’s got a fish hook through his lip!” had me all but sprinting through the brush, leaping felled trees like a frenzied deer (admittedly it was probably more like a deer that’s been half eaten by a wolf and that is getting on in years) as I navigated the tangled shore of the lake.

I made it to where Sam was and sure enough, there he was, a stranger holding his rod for him and on the end of the line … himself with a hook piercing his lip.

He was luck on 2 counts. Firstly, because we were in Yellowstone, the hook was barbless. Secondly, the hook had only gone through the fleshy part of the lip rather than through the entire front of his face so to speak. That of course did very little to lessen his distress. I tried to work the hook out, but barbless doesn’t mean you just slip off the hook with no effort (unless you’re a trout apparently) as there’s a slight flaring below the tip that was just enough to keep Sam on it without me giving it a really hard pull (and he wasn’t up to that to be sure!).

So with more people descending on us to find out what’s going on (after all, ‘Sam’s got a hook through his mouth’ tends to draw attention) I sent Thomas off for the pliers.

As we waited, I kept the tension off the line and tried to cheer him up as best as I could, I told him that we’d get him some ice for it, that it was unlikely to need an stitches or serious medical attention and askiedif he still though the geysers were boring, or whether he’d rather be caught on a fish hook.

Without batting an eyelid (hew as trying to keep still after all) he looked at me and said, “The fish hook is more fun.” Little bugger! The pliers duly arrived and with a quick clip, the flared tip was removed and Sam slipped off like the elusive ‘one that got away’.

No blood and so nice ice was required and Sam was off being his usual self within minutes. Even when I quipped that I might have to start calling him trout he smiled and in fact, I think he’s secretly pleased with the new nickname!

No photos with this one ... for some reason i didn't think to stop and take any!

Yellowstone Pt. 3 – Old Geezers.

The next day was decided to be dedicated to Geysers. In particular, we thought that we’d set out to see Old Faithful. After all, how could one travel all the way to Yellowstone and not see the world’s most famous geyser.

There’s a lot of geysers in the park, but the most notable fact about Old Faithful is the regularity with which it erupts and the fact that they can predict the eruption to within about 20 minutes. The guy that took us fishing recommended going to the visitor’s centre first and see when some of the other geysers were likely to erupt as many of them would likely only go off once a day, whilst you could come back and see Old Faithful anytime given its approximate 90 minute interval between eruptions.

We timed our arrival nicely so that it was due to go off in approximately 5 minutes, so we didn’t rush off to see any of the others (some of which had times posted like ‘within 2 hours of 6pm’). We joined the throng of people sitting to wait for the eruption, listened to a talk by one of the rangers about the geyser, its history and its mechanics (I won’t bother explaining, if you want more information, go here)and waited. And waited. It seemed that we managed to pick one of those days where the old geezer was feeling its years and waited until well past the time that it was supposed to erupt.

This of course gave the kids plenty of time to talk about how boring the whole thing was. Sam in particular really wasn’t all that impressed with the steaming hole in the ground that would occasionally spit and bubble in a teasing, preemptory show only to settle back down again.





But with a little more patience, the geyser did indeed do its thing, spouting a vent of hot water and steam impressively high into the air for about 4 minutes. After about 1 of those 4 minutes, Sam was certainly ready to leave.



Following the eruption, we force marched took the kids for a stroll on a walk around the geysers and hot pools in the area of Old faithful. There were some spectacular formations and pools, some of which looked like incredibly inviting spas whilst others looked like festering sulphurous death traps. It was quite frightening to read that a number of people had died in the area in the park’s history as the crust over some areas can be quite thin and it doesn’t take much to crack through it and descend rapidly into your own little lobster pot. Fortunately there is a wooden walkway these days.



The only time we came close to danger was when my hat decided to fly from me head, past the safety railing and onto the – no trespass zone. With some judicious climbing and delicate balance I managed to hang from the support structure for the walk way and retrieve it without even touching the ground.



I won’t write too much more about this part as I think the photos really describe the place more adequately than I can with words.



Let’s just say that after a long walk with tired kids and without seeing any other geysers erupting, the ice cream that the kids were allowed at the end of it was probably the thing that they’ll remember most!

Crossing to the Dark Side

When the kids first had an opportunity to play soccer in Canada I wanted to be involved but was also conscious of the fact that if I committed to coaching a team, it was likely that someone was going to miss out on Dad getting to their game, especially as Michael, Sam and Thomas played on the same nights (even if Michael was an hour later).

I figured that the easiest way for me to get involved was to volunteer to referee (much as I had done at home) and that way, which ever game I was at I could assist with. What I didn’t expect was for them to send me back information about how I would have to undertake a 2 day course and pay money in order to be a referee. With how busy I was at work at the time, it simply didn’t happen.

Since then, every now and then, the call goes out for people to learn to be referees. I maintained an interest, but the timing for the courses never quite seemed to line up. Until recently, when I spent a weekend, including Father’s day doing a referee’s course.

I have crossed to the dark side. I am now an officially qualified regional referee in Alberta. All that’s left to do is get the uniform. Of course this is Fort McMurray so that is a task in itself.

Yellowstone 2 - Here fishy fishy

We arose in the morning and planned out our first day in the park, deciding to go for a drive and see a bit of the park as well as to try and secure a fishing trip and possibly even a white water rafting expedition (though every time someone mentioned white water rafting, Emily would state with unequivocal intent that she would not be participating).



Information in hand, we decided to drive up as far as Canyon as that sounded like one of the more interesting places in the park, stopping on the way to photograph whatever wildlife we happened to come across (Elk and Bison on that first trip). The waterfall at Canyon was well worth the drive and we had even managed to book ourselves into a fishing trip on the way up there. All we had to do was drive back in time to make the boat.

Yellowstone's Grand Canyon










Sounds ominous doesn’t it?

As always, yours truly was the only one that actually stressed about the time commitment and I distinctly recall saying something about leaving on time because “it only takes one Bison on the road to delay you!” (We’d passed lots of them and some significant herds on the way up).

Such prophetic words. We were of course running later than I for one preferred in order to head back and make our fishing charter when we came to a complete standstill behind a line of cars. The line curved down around a series of trees which blocked us from seeing what the cause could be. Ever so slowly the traffic inched ahead and the time ticked on toward our scheduled departure.



Caroline got on the phone (which was a hit and miss affair in the wilds of the park) to try and let them know that we were on our way, but were stuck in traffic.

As we finally moved to a point where we could see what was going on, it was indeed bison blocking the road. It seemed like the entire herd had decided to cross just at that particular moment, which may have not been so bad if it had simply crossed over, but these were big woolly coated, thick headed bison; with calves. And do you think they could make up their minds as to which way to go? Hell no, back and forth across the road they wandered, tourists with massive grins aiming their cameras at them and snapping away. And all the time our time ticked away. Finally, five minutes before we were due to be at our destination (which was 20 minutes away) Caroline got through to the right people and they told us that they’d hold the boat (lucky we were the only ones on it)

We made it to the charter location and set out for our 2 hour fishing adventure. The wind had blown up a bit, so we weren’t taken all the way across the lake like most of the trips, but did find a sheltered spot where we could get the rods out and cast out our lures with their barb-less hooks.







Sadly only three of us were allowed to fish at a time, much to the kids disgust (and to Caroline’s disappointment) so there was quite a bit of rod and time management involved in trying to let everyone have a good go. I was starting to think that it was all a big bust when I first felt a fish take my line. It was at that point that the fact that the reel was left handed undid me. Rather than what I was used to, holding the rod with my left hand and managing the reel with my right, this was reversed, so when I went to jag the hook and bring it in, all I did was fumble about a bit and the fish was gone.

At least it was a moment of excitement. I was up the bow of the boat and of course as soon as that had happened, despite the fact that I’d been fishing to the stern, Michael wanted to get up there as well (as much because it meant climbing past the cabin rather than standing in the boring designed to be fished from stern of the craft). Soon I had three boys with me and very little room! Fortunately as they managed to get a turn with the rods they spread out a bit.

After moving the drifting boat and whilst still at the bow, I heard some excitement and Thomas was reeling in a nice big trout. It turns out there’s two types of trout in Lake Yellowstone, Yellowstone Cutthroat and Lake Trout. The Cutthroat is protected and thus catch and release whilst the Lake trout is not allowed to be thrown back, but unlike the old European Carp of the Murray, is apparently worth eating.

Thomas reeled in a Cutthroat. I think we have a photo, though he declined to give it a kiss before sending it on its way!

Rods changed hands, people moved about and I believe Caroline was the next person to reel in a fish. Now I should mention that these were fish worth catching, being as long as from my elbow to my fingertips if not longer. I too managed to snag one and get it all the way to the boat and must say that I thoroughly enjoyed it. Both Caroline’s and mine were Cutthroat as well.

That just left the two eldest boys and a little girl. Everyone wanted to cast the lure out, though this of course meant that it often didn’t go far (especially where Emily was involved) and they wanted to hook and reel in their own fish (especially Michael). The problem was that there’s a particular jagging action to use as you reel the rod in and I just don’t think the kids quite had the hang of it. I offered to help Sam and after a couple of casts he was happy to have me try and hook something for him if he got to reel it in. I managed to snag one and Sam happily got it back to the boat. You guessed it, another cutthroat. I don’t think Michael was quite right in claiming that it was the same fish over and over again!










Poor Michael, who would refuse all help was left with his bottom lip getting lower and the storm clouds brewing over his brow as time marched on. And when it was time to go back and he hadn’t brought in a fish, it was positively stormy (well not literally). Fortunately our guide was sensitive to the situation and part way back, called Michael up to the wheel and had him drive the boat most of the way back. A wonderful little salvage operation, I must say.

And so we drove home for yet another late dinner (I was thoroughly over 9pm dinners by now) and found that our friends Matt and Bron had arrived in their new caravan and so drinks were drunk and dinner deferred even later as we closed out the day discussing what we’d get up to on the ‘morrow.

Photos from part 1

So, here's some photos from our Yellowstone adventure that go with part 1. Part 2 will be posted soon ... along with it's photos. (click on the photo to enlarge)

Crossing the Border



Dinner at Applebees



Overnight stop .. Dick's RV ... what luxury eh?



A little piece of Montana



We made it! To the gate at least





And the campsite was worth it.

Yellowstone Pt. 1 - Are we there yet?

Okay, so I started this sitting in bed in the caravan and then continued whilst sitting around the campfire. Now close to a week after I left, I thought I should get around to finishing and posting it! The photos will have to wait though, they’re still with the camera, which is with Caroline and the kids. I fly down tomorrow night to drive them back up over the weekend.

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Here we are, in the USA. In Great Falls, Montana, actually, with a long way still to go.

I left work early on Friday so that we could get a nice early start, but of course great plans are never quite executed with the perfection that they are conceived and so it wasn’t until much later than anticipated that we finally managed to get ourselves away from Fort McMurray.

This time, the aim was to get out of the driveway and if possible, all the way to our overnight camp without incident. I was in two minds as to whether to fill the caravan tank with water and pay the price of towing it or wait until we arrived at our destination, but in the end decided that I’d take a bit with us, just to get us through the first night. It wasn’t until I had been filling it for a while that I noticed the trail of water down the driveway. That’s when I remembered that the valve on the low drain point of the water tank was broken … hmm seems like that wasn’t quite going to go to plan. I took a look and decided that it wouldn’t be too hard to fix so we left home sans water and decided to fix it at some later point.

From there, the only thing providing minor hiccups to the plan was the cough that Michael had been living with for the days leading up to our departure. I had spread to Sam and wasn’t far off infecting Emily and Thomas as well, which means that we travelled most of the way to a chorus of hacking coughs and wheezing throats. I fully expected to get my turn around about the time that we stop driving and sit down to enjoy the holiday.

We over-nighted in the tiny town of killam and woke up to the sound of rain pattering away on the caravan roof and the solid roof that covers up our little extendable sleeping box (it will make sense when you see the pictures). And at that point I think Caroline and I were both more than happy to smile and enjoy the fact that we’d upgraded from the tent trailer and wouldn’t have to worry about wet canvas. And so it was that we set out for day two of the adventure, happy with progress.

As I drove, towing a large, loaded caravan behind me for the first time, I couldn’t help but keep one eye on the fuel consumption, noting the fact that I was making a considerably larger donation back to the industry that supports my employment than we used to have to make with the tent trailer, the needle all but visibly drooping under the rapid draining of the fuel tank. Ahh, the price of comfort.

The target for the day was to successfully negotiate the border crossing and try and get down to Great Falls (which we obviously succeeded at). We managed to get away nice and early and even kept the kids entertained with a ‘treasure hunt’; something Caroline came up with to entertain the kids and even get them to tear their gaze away from the screens and look out the windows. It’s really like scenic bingo. You have to find all the things on the list that the instigator comes up with. It was significantly more successful that eye-spy, a game which at the time seems like a great idea, but which quickly wears out its welcome and deteriorates into a series of protests, arguments and insults. After all, eye spy is particularly challenging with someone of Emily’s age, who is likely to start with “I spy with my little eye something that starts with A”. And of course the answer is ‘Elephant’. Go figure, wrong letter and you can’t see the bloody thing anyway. As long as you don’t apply logic, or open your eyes, you have a chance.

Now whilst the treasure hunt game started out well, as Caroline read out her list, I started to have my doubts. These were things that we were supposed to see from the car. When she got to goat, chicken and more importantly, bear, I believe I expressed my disdain. After all, I don’t ever recall having seen a chicken from the car here and we’ve even only spotted one bear.

But unbeknownst to me at the time was how flexible she was prepared to be with the rules. Who would have thought that the KFC we were eating for lunch would qualify as the chicken, or that she’d accept a picture of a bear in a newspaper for that animal. Not the way I would have run the game, but hey, it worked. Funnily enough, I think by the end of the trip we had actually managed to cross off everything on her list, though having started well, we went for hundreds of kilometres past many many paddocks full of horses without seeing a foal. In the end we even saw the elusive goat (and no, it wasn’t me).

After stopping to pick up some hardware to repair the water tank valve in Great Falls, we made it to West Yellowstone on the edge of the park around lunchtime and did some over-priced grocery shopping, stocking the pantry for the days ahead and then set out to enjoy the marvelous scenery on our way to our camping location at Grant Village. We had hoped to be there by mid afternoon, but the further we travelled, the further our destination seemed to be from us. With mountains, the continental divide and seemingly ever decreasing speed restrictions to deal with, it seemed like every time I estimated how long there was to go, it was the same. At least the scenery was varied and eventually we made it.

While Caroline checked us into the park and arranged permits (you need a permit to fish, a permit to paddle a kayak … I’m surprised you didn’t need one to use the air!), I crawled around under the van and fixed our valve problem in the carpark so that we could fill the tank before we headed down to our site. It turned out to be a magic spot with a view through the trees across Lake Yellowstone. A campfire followed over which we cooked our dinner before hitting the sack.