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
Oct 14, 2009
Oct 8, 2009
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 Iclambered 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.
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
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.
Oct 2, 2009
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 receiveloot 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.
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
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.
Sep 30, 2009
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?
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?
Sep 20, 2009
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?
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?
Sep 9, 2009
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.
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.
Sep 3, 2009
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.
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.
Aug 25, 2009
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.
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.
Aug 5, 2009
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.
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.
----------
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.
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.
----------
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.
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