Urbania...Photos and "Fun"

If you haven't read Kevan's blog yet you won't know that we thought it would be a good idea to go downtown and shoot early morning pictures, getting shots of the light hitting the windows in the buildings and what not.

Well, we ended up going out in the morning at about 7:00am, coffee in hands, ready to expand our photographic eye into Urbania. We parked near the eastern edge of downtown, just west of Centre Street, and started walking. A few blocks later we saw some neat patterns in the office windows so we stopped to take some shots.At another point we found a very cool tree that had the sun blasting through it's leaves that were changing colour. It was an interesting shot because some of the leaves were being illuminated from the rear and some were not because of a building casting a shadow.We kept walking, hoping to find something amazing, something unique that was not so cliche. We ended up in Olympic Plaza after about 10 minutes of wandering around and came upon what I thought was a homeless person. He stood up, slugged a huge hiking pack on his back, and turned around. He then told Kevan to tighten his straps. I don't think Kevan knew how to initially react, maybe it was the fact that he was French, maybe it was the fact that you don't expect someone to just turn around and ask you to tighten their straps! We decided at that point we had enough, we were hungry, and we needed to get out of Urbania.

Breakfast...so many options in a city like Calgary. How do you narrow it down? Actually, it's quite simple. You find the one that's open! I think it was about 8:15am and we went back to the place in Kensington that we tried a few weeks before and it was closed. Opens at 9:00am. Ugh. So we started North and ended up trying the North Hill Diner on 16th Ave. Closed. Crap! I wanted to eat some breakfast! No worries though. As we were driving down 16th Ave headed in the general direction of our church I remembered Tipperaries (I spelled that wrong) had a cheap breakfast. We got in there and saw the sign, OPEN, but next week we're starting to serve at 9:00am. I guess God was looking out for our bellies on Sunday! It turned out to be a decent breakfast, though interesting...There were two tables with a total of three customers in the pub eating breakfast...including us. The waitress came over to our table and asked what she could get for us (their menu included bacon and eggs, and bacon and eggs). I should have said a beer. It was quick, it was cheap ($10.50 for both of us including tip), and we both left satisfied.

I think I would like to try this experience over again but have a goal of something to shoot before going. Kevan and I both commented on how it would have been good to place ourselves somewhere where we know the shot is going to be really good and just sit until the time is right. Next time...(I think I'd also like to get more than 5 hours sleep before going again too).

D

A New Toy To Play With!!!

Yesterday I got home to find a new toy awaiting me! The day before my birthday I made my last big purchase for a while...a new lens for my camera. I was debating which lens to purchase and had a few in mind including a 28mm - 80mm, 70mm - 300mm, and a 28mm - 135mm.Well, I ended up going with the 28mm - 135mm, which is the same one that Kevan has. Not that I'm trying to be just like Kevan (though we do now have the same camera, same lenses, and the same photographic eye!) but I really felt that this one is the true "work horse" of the options available. A few of reasons why:

1. It gives you a fairly good wide angle (though not nearly as good as the 18mm - 55mm kit lens included with the camera
2. It gives you a fairly decent telephoto
3. Weight-wise it's fairly light and will be good to carry on hikes and whatnot
4. It has an Image Stabilization feature that means I need to worry less and less about carrying a tripod around with me (cursed tripod!)
5. You get the most "bang for your buck" compared to the other lenses

I haven't had a chance to really test it out yet, hoping to do that this weekend since the weather is supposed to be nice. If anyone has any suggestions on how to properly check a used lens for defects please comment back.

Sorry for the photo-geek post...I'm just stoked about it!

D

Those Stupid Things We Do...

It's interesting how we do stupid things on a whim and we don't want to back out of our zany ideas when we're half way through them...

Last night we had Kevan and Leah over for dinner at about 7pm and ate taco salad. It was delicious. After we were planning on going mini-golfing but unfortunately we couldn't find a place in Calgary (other than Shanks Bar) that has indoor mini-golf, and it was WAY too cold outside to go to an outdoor place. Karyn and I had been shopping yesterday and picked up a few new movies, three of which happened to be the Matrix Trilogy. Well, Kevan and Leah saw them and it was suggested (I don't know who actually suggested it) that we make a crazy movie night and watch all three of them. Well, it was 8pm and we sat down and started watching them...all curled up on the middle couch with coffee in hand.

As the night went on and it got later, and later, and later, we kept watching. The more Neo learned how to use his "powers" in the Matrix, the more tired we got. Karyn was the least interested of all of us and after the 2nd one she went to lay down on the other couch. I think at one point in the evening she also left for about 5-10 minutes to go look at houses online. Sometimes she's like a little kid and you can't keep her attention for more than 15 minutes.

We finished up the trilogy at about 2:45am. Everyone was thoroughly exhausted and we questioned why again, at 8pm, watching all three seemed like a good idea. I think it will be a LONG time before we decide to do something as stupid as stay up until the wee hours of the morning watching movies again...until we decide to either watch the Lord of the Rings Trilogy (extended version) or if we're feeling really brave, the entire series of Star Wars. Ugh...it makes me cringe just thinking about it!

D

WOOHOO!

I can't believe it! We slept in today!! I got 12 hours of sleep...amazing! Ok, that's all.

Why me??

Ok, so I now have a VERY good reason to quit my job at Cardinal! Here it is. Feast your eyes on this baby. Gross. Yep, those are reflector strips! And yep, the thing is 5 sizes too big. Don't I look fantastic? I don't know who WOULDN'T want to have this as an accessory to their outfits! Vomit. I'll understand if nobody ever wants to be my friend again.

Bird in the Chimney!

In the last little while Duane and I have noticed noise coming from our chimney...sounds of wings beating and scratching. We figured there was a poor bird who had entered for protection from the wet weather, or just for the heck of it...considering it hasn't been bad weather until today! I decided that during my break this morning I'd try to release and catch the little guy so he didn't perish (like a couple of his little buddies who fell from the chimney as I opened the flue). I have a feeling that as soon as I let him outside after catching him, he probably had a heart attack from the rush of cold air and rain beating down on him! Hopefully not, but who knows.
The process to catch this sparrow was quite the thing. I slowly opened the flue, and the bird dropped into the fireplace opening. I figured, "ok, just take a rolled up magazine and coax him into the open cereal box." Couldn't be too hard, right? Wrong. It was NOT the easiest thing to do..especially having to work around sooty wood, coals, and two dead birds! Since the poor thing was just let out of a dark, box-like place, he REALLY didn't want to be coaxed into another one! He surprised me and flew out of a section of the fireplace I hadn't blocked off very well, and took off around our living room like a maniac, spraying soot from his wings. I should look for a soot mark on our front window. He hit it a few times. He "hid" in the blinds, hid under the TV stand, the chair in the corner, the big couch, in the shoe rack, the winter-wear basket on the shelf at the front door, and flew into the door a few times. Gosh that thing was quick! And trying to get a box over it was quite a challenge at some points. At this point, time was getting tight as I needed to get to my last shift at Cardinal before the driver left without me! I couldn't phone her, because if I left the room the bird would hide somewhere and then I wouldn't be able to find it. What a mess! I finally caught the bird with minutes to spare...well, not really...I was already late...but I drove like a crazy person to get to the bus yard before I was left behind.
The living room looks like someone trashed it...so I had better clean it up!
Here's a photo of the little guy.
~K~

Mt. Tecumseh: A One-Time Affair

Two weeks ago Kevan, Aaron, and I decided to head to the Crowsnest Pass to hike Mt. Tecumseh. We were going to bring the girls along but Leah already had plans to meet up with a friend in Calgary, Megan was on her way back to Dalum to get ready for her move to Lethbridge for the school year, and Karyn didn't want to be the only girl on the hike.

We left Calgary at about 9:30am after a long breakfast ordeal where we ended up going to Cafe Bouquet, finding out it was closed, driving to Kennsington to another spot to find out that was also closed, and then back up to Cafe Bouquet. We decided that will be the last time we visit that restaurant due to poor service, poor food, and a general poor experience the past few times we've been there.

Our hike began with a group of three water-bombers passing overhead doing training on the Crowsnest Lake. It was pretty cool to see them fly low overhead, land in the lake to pick up water, and then take off again and drop their load over a forest. We had a leisurely walk up a back road to a dried creek-bed which was our trailhead.The hike up the creekbed was basically one bouldering session after another. There were a number of points where you could climb up the creekbed using opposing force, though the backpacking footwear may have not been the best choice for this. We took a little longer playing in the creek-bed then necessary and we fully intend to go back again next year with ropes, harnesses, and proper footwear so we can play in there again.We finally arrived at a point in the creekbed where we couldn't go on any further and had to climb out. The climb out was a little questionable (Aaron can attest to that!) but once we were out the hike was pretty easy. Kevan and I took the opportunity to push a huge boulder down the slope into the creekbed and watch it explode into a million pieces! I don't know why, but I get great satisfaction from pushing rocks down hills. Below you can see the point where we had to leave the creekbed. Our climb out was up to the top-right of the picture.After we cleared the creekbed we had some lunch. Shortly after, we noticed some animals on the hillside and tried to determine for a good 10 minutes whether they were deer or sheep. They looked an awful lot like deer, but in the end (and when we got closer) we decided they were sheep. I still think there was some inter-species breeding going on and we were the witnesses of the results! At this point our hike got pretty tough.

The next 2 hours were grueling. Two hours of straight up the mountain without much of a path to follow. We ended up finding some game trails but this mountain was a 'Choose Your Own Adventure'. To make things worse, the "trail" was climbing up over loose boulders about the size of a soccer ball. It made for some tough, slow climbing. There were points when we all wanted to turn around but we kept pushing on.What a relief it was to reach the summit! The view was amazing as we could look over the Rockies to the west of us, the foothills and prairie to the east. I took a few pictures at the summit and was quite pleased with the results. Glad I brought the tripod on this hike!The way back down was almost worse than the way up! Going down the large boulders was a little difficult as we couldn't really slide down them like a scree slope. At one point I lost my footing, fell on my stomach, and then slid about a foot and scratched up my belly. I also hurt my hand which proved to be a real pain when we got back to the creek-bed where I needed to use it to lower myself down at some points.

We finished the hike very hot and very tired. After completing the mountain we all decided two things:

1. We were glad that we didn't bring the girls along because it probably would have proved a little too extreme for them.

2. Mt. Tecumseh is a one-time affair and, though it was satisfying to summit it, none of us have the desire to do so again.

~D~

Travels Through the Mountain

This past weekend we drove to the Crowsnest Pass with Kevan, Leah, and Jenna to hike to the Cleft Caves. We left Calgary at 5pm and hit some major traffic due to accidents in the city Friday night (see Karyn's blog below) and ended up meeting up with Aaron and Megan at about 8pm in the Pass. We drove to our campsite, setup camp, and basically went to bed (around 10pm, wow are we a wild bunch!).

Saturday morning was chilly, maybe about 5ºC if we were lucky. Due to our mix of marrieds and unmarrieds, our sleeping groups were Kevan, Aaron, and I in our tent, Karyn and Leah in another tent, and Jenna and Megan in the final tent. The boys kept nice and warm all night (Aaron kind of cuddled up with me because Kevan was taking up half the tent for himself!) and I'm not sure about the rest of the girls. It was a little cold for Karyn (who has no internal heat source) and she didn't sleep much of the evening.

We met up with Harv and Daniel (Kevan's father and brother respectively) at about 9:30 and started the long walk to the Cleft Cave. The first 7km in were along a "road" and was relatively simple. It would have been nice to have a 4x4 but hey, I'm not willing to feed a vehicle like that! When we got to the trail-head it was a pretty intense hike up to our lunch spot, about
an hour's walk on a pretty decent trail but with quite a bit of elevation gain. Karyn was extremely tired and didn't want to go on and Harv was also ready to turn around and call it quits. Luckily they kept going to our lunch spot where they were able to get some food and rest up for the final push up to the cave.

I took Karyn's pack (along with my own) for the final elevation-gain because she was pretty tired. I had my pack on my back and hers on backwards over my stomach. I finally realized what it would be like to have a giant gut hanging off my front. I don't think I liked it! The push up to the cave mouth reminded me of a hike up Tecumseh a few weeks ago with a poorly defined trail, loose boulders, and a lot of up. Everyone was glad to get to the top! In the picture below you can see the mouth of the cave just left of the top-centre of the picture.At the cave entrance we all put on our extra gear. It was about 20ºC on the side of the mountain but it gets very cool in the cave itself so we all bundled up in long sleeves, long pants, and some of us brought toques and gloves. It was about 2:30pm when we entered the cave.

If you've never been caving I would strongly recommend it. What an amazing feeling to be inside a mountain with millions of tonnes of rock overhead. The other amazing feeling is the darkness. There were a few moments where I shut my light off and just sat there in the cave, alone in the dark. We worked our way through the mountain, having to go on our knees and bellies at some points to get through. There were two points where we were able to get to the other side of the mountain and look into the bowls and the view was great (less all the smoke from the forest fires burning in BC, Idaho, and Washington).

Inside the cave the geology and ice formations were incredible. It is hard to imagine how these caves exist and what's inside them. There were a few rooms where water had run from the ceiling to the floor and made ribbons of ice. Very cool to experience. There were also ice spheres where the water would constantly drip and form a point and form a sphere around whatever it was dripping on. We ended up calling them ice boobs ;)

In the last section of the cave was the pinch point. Basically you have to go down on your back, head first, into this pinch-point where the clearance is maybe a foot and a half. Here you can see a picture of Daniel going down (it looks flat but I was shooting down the slope) into the pinch-point.This is a picture of me coming out of it. As you can see, there's not too much clearance. We were talking about how the first person to explore the cave got a lot of man-cards (we're assuming it was a man but we're in no way denying that it could have been a woman) for finding the route. Specifically in this section you would need to have some faith because once you started going in, it would be very difficult to turn around and go back out!

We emerged from the cave, dirty but all very fulfilled that we had just done what we did, at about 4:30pm. From there it was a long hike back down to the cars and it took us until 7pm. We drove into Coleman and had dinner at Popiels (a local favourite) before driving back to Calgary.

~D~

Friday's Ridiculous Traffic

Well, my morning on Friday was bad enough, but the rest of the day probably couldn't have gotten much worse! I won't go into it, otherwise it'll turn into a rant...I won't subject anyone to my frustration. It was just a bad day from the get-go. I will mention that there was a fatal car accident(involving 3 vehicles, one being a semi trailer)right at the end of my day, but thank goodness, not in the direction I was travelling. That particular accident closed down the Deerfoot(Hwy 2) from Beddington Trail(northbound) all the way to at least 32nd Ave., but traffic was backed up all the way down into the sound end of town! Because of this accident and the closure of the highway, ALL the main arteries in town were bumper to bumper traffic filled with frustrated drivers wanting to get home. Anyone driving to Airdrie was screwed. I was SO glad Leah wasn't going home to Airdrie after work, but was coming to our house to head to the Crowsnest Pass right away. She wouldn't have been a happy camper. Which leads me to the next point. Once Jenna and Kevan showed up(coming FROM Airdrie, thank goodness) at our house, it took us ONE HOUR to get from our driveway to Deerfoot Trail!!! It's a FIVE MINUTE trip! It was the dumbest thing ever. Needless to say, we were late getting into the Pass to meet up with Aaron and Megan, and then we had to set up camp in the dark. Boo that.
Well, lunch is ready...I shall go chow on good ol' Mac n' Cheese! YUM!

~K~

Whew, what a morning!

What's so ridiculous about it(my morning, that is) is that I actually woke up early (still after 2 hits of the snooze button, mind you) and had a shower!! WHAT? Yeah, I don't do such things. Waking up early and all that. Boo. Friends have recently told me that waking up in the morning is SO much easier if they shower to start the day. I was skeptical. I think I needed to have a cold shower...maybe that would've woken me up. But, alas, I had a scorching shower as per norm, and it really didn't expediate my waking process. In fact, I wanted to turn around and go back to bed! That may have also had something to do with the fact that it was before 6:30 in the freakin' morning! Yuck. Duane was sure surprised last night when I said I was waking up to shower...he was skeptical. His comment was, "you're going to be late for work"...and he said it so matter-of-factly. I told him to have faith. And I made it...I think I was even early! I had to skip breakfast though.
My first run of the morning went well enough. I asked my driver, Jan, if she had heard anything else after I got off the bus at the end of the day yesterday, about an incident involving the police on a bus. We had been able to only hear one side of the dispatch transaction. But we knew it was a "code blue", which means police need to be called, and the dispatcher was asking the driver to calm down, asking whether they needed an ambulance, etc. My morbid curiosity was piqued, however I was also quite annoyed that I couldn't hear the other side of the conversation. So Jan and I tried to make stuff up instead. It ended up that there was some kind of altercation between a couple students. I don't know if there was a weapon involved, and an "altercation" could really mean any number of things. There were also 3 schools on lock-down yesterday afternoon as a result of shootings. I don't know that anyone was injured, but that's just crazy! Then this morning, there was another incident involving a parent on a bus. Parents are NOT allowed on our busses, and this parent was apparently irate. She wouldn't let the driver and attendant drive away because she was upset with how they had secured her child's wheelchair. So the driver had to call dispatch to correct the problem. Again, we could only hear the dispatcher's side of the conversation, but we heard him talking to the parent. The parent still wouldn't get off the bus. I think all ended well after the parent was given permission to point out how she'd prefer the chair to be strapped in. I didn't hear anything about it after that, but the police were almost called, as it is illegal for parents to prevent a driver from continuing the run...or to be on the bus in the first place. Jan and I just laughed. Some parents are too protective.
Anyway...that was my morning...and that was all before 9:30! Now to head off to Handi-Bus.

Purely Prairie 2

Purely Prairie

Here are a few(ok, a lot of) shots of the prairies I so dearly love...and for whatever reason am planning on moving further away from.

Randomness...

There are a few random things I haven't posted about in the last little while that I thought I should add. One being my second attempt at a cookbook meal(chili on pasta...turned out great, by the way!) and another being the ridiculous hairdo I had last week..what was I thinking?! Hmmm...stupid would be a better word. Laugh all you want...here goes nothing.and another being Duane's 26th birthday celebration at his cousin Jenn's...complete with MONEY-CAKE! A whole 11 cents, Duane...impressive. Was Mollie finally warming up to Duane?? Nope, he's just got food and she likes to beg...

One ugly shirt or the other...

This morning I was faced with a dilemma. Not the normal person's "what should I wear today(to make myself look presentable)?" query, but more to the tune of "which ugly shirt (of 4 provided ugly shirts) do I wear today?" Gross. You people should see what Handi-Bus uniforms do to a small person's figure!! They basically negate the need to even BE small because they make me look so big and boxy(my boobs could be 3 cup sizes bigger and I could be pregnant and you'd never notice)!! And to make it worse, they're so new that they're stiff and construction paper-like. Yuck. Oh, and one more thing. They're corpse-grey. Sick. They make me look sick. I feel like being sick when I put it on. Duane too. He won't even look at me when I'm wearing it, and if he is...he's laughing. Can I throw myself a pity party? Come one, come all...misery loves company.

Beautiful British Columbia!

Hey y'all...we're baaack! We were away for the long weekend in Salmon Arm, and we had a great time. Aside from having to pay for camping, of course. Kevan and Duane felt like they sold their souls. It would have been worse had we paid for firewood as well. So we didn't have a fire. The night we arrived in SA, it was pretty late so we just took over Carene and Dave's house for the night....Thanks guys! They were in Kamloops for a wedding, so it worked out well.
Ok, so I just talked to Duane on the phone, and he's blogging too! And he's adding pictures 'cause he's got them all on his computer...so heck, why do I bother? Mine will suck. Look for his entry...coming soon to a blogsite near you! Yeah, I'm pathetic.

How to Spend a Weekend...The Good and the Bad

This past weekend Karyn and I went to Salmon Arm with Kevan and Leah to have a relaxing time away from Calgary, take a look at a few places we might want to live and, in general, have a good time.

We left Calgary on Friday evening at about 5pm and drove all the way to Salmon Arm. Along the way Kevan and I had the need to take a few pictures outside of Golden along the Trans-Canada Highway of the moon hanging just above the mountains. It looked very cool in reality, but the pictures were a little disappointing. Moon shots are just TOUGH to take! We did, however, snap a few shots of cars screaming down the highway and got some neat head/tail light trails!We arrived in Salmon Arm sometime around 10:30pm local and headed to Dave and Carene's place. They were gracious enough to open their door to us to crash there even though they weren't home. On Saturday we went to look at a few places Karyn had found online, one in town and one in Silver Creek, about 15 minutes outside of town. The place in Salmon Arm was a dive...a BIG DIVE. They were asking way too much for this terrible house that was only good for tearing down. In its defence, it was situated on a pretty large property for in town and that's why it was so expensive. The place in Silver Creek was pretty nice. We weren't huge fans of the floor plan of the house but the lot was great. Situated on about 1/3 of an acre on a quiet street with a shop, a garden shed, and a garage. They were asking a little more than we can afford and we realized that the house was going to need some work, something we're not prepared to invest in at this point in our lives.

The next part of the day was the most painful I've experienced in a while. We had to pay for a camp site. Yeah, that's right, I forked out $22 to pitch a tent 10 feet from a complete stranger next to the highway. It hurt...a lot! We were pretty hot so we decided to go swimming but the beach there was, to put it mildly, NASTY. The mud was slimy, the water was dirty, and we didn't want to swim in it. We ended up renting a paddle boat for an hour, paddling out, and swimming off it. In the evening we went back to Dave & Carene's place to shower (and get the nastiness of the lake off us) and out for dinner to PJ's Restaurant which was great. If you're ever passing through Salmon Arm, eat there because they have a great salad bar and smorgasboard of food for a really good price.

Sunday we woke up early, drove to Tim Hortons, and were planning on going to the 9:30 church service at the Salmon Arm Free Methodist church. When we got there we realized that the Lakeside Community church (who shares the same building) had their service at 9:30 and the FM church service was at 11:15 so we went back to PJ's for breakfast (apparently that's what they're known for in Salmon Arm). When we were done Kevan and I played frisbee/football for about 30 minutes in the park and Karyn and Leah read while we were waiting for the church service to begin. We walked in at about 11:10 and we were the youngest people there by at least 25 years! Oh man, what an old-people service. That said, the people were really friendly and there was a lot of genuine love in the congregation for one another which was something I haven't seen in a church in a long time.

After the church service was over we went and looked at a few town homes that we're thinking of buying. They were ok and certainly more in our price range than some of the houses in Salmon Arm. After, we went to Dave & Carene's (again) and we all headed up to Wallensteen Lake, well above Salmon Arm townsite in the hills, where we were planning on spending the night. The road up there was somewhat questionable and I still feel bad for Kevan & Leah's Honda! Most of you don't know this, but Hondas truely are SUVs disguised as a sub-compact car. The Honda made it up to the lake where we spent the afternoon relaxing. We were disappointed at the quality of the camping site so we decided that we were going to head back to town a few hours later (and potentially have to pay for camping again!). Kevan and I played frisbee and football for about an hour and then got bored while Dave was out catching dinner. Looking for new things to do, Kevan and I got the trusty hatchet out of the trunk again and taught ourselves how to properly throw it into a tree (look closely in the picture to find the flying hatchet...Kevan had some issues on this one getting it to stick in the tree!). We had a fire, partially cooked Dave's fish that he caught, and decided to head back to town.
(Just because Mollie is so cute, I had to post a couple pictures of her...this, however was when she wasn't filthy after rolling through a cow pie!)

That evening we were offered a place to spend the night at Dave & Carene's again (bless their hearts!) and enjoyed the evening munching on fish and watching The Legend of Zorro. Do yourselves a favour, don't watch that movie!

Monday was our first anniversary and we managed to spend it driving in the car back to Calgary! I can't think of a better way to spend an anniversary, can you?!? As is tradition in the Lucas family, Karyn got dressed up in her wedding dress and we took a few pictures. It was lovely of Duane to oblige to my seemingly odd family tradition...what a great guy!