Returning to the Crowsnest

The sun is so deceptive - even at night it seems like it never really gets dark for very long. The tent was packed up very quickly since the mosquitoes were just as hungry this morning as they were last night and I've now developed a system: pegs in the bag, dew covered poles folded up and placed in the hatch, rain soaked fly over the back seat, wet footprint over the fly, and finally the tent dries on the floor of the car. Away we head for the Crowsnest Pass!
Every other time that I can recall going out there, it has always been via #1 highway and then drop down to the #3 but not this time; this time I was going to take in some of the places I'd never seen before and I'm glad I did. There really is a Starship Enterprise in Vulcan and the town of Nanton has a couple of gems: two old prairie grain elevators
and an airforce museum complete with


Lancaster Bomber


panel art work


and Victoria Cross.
Needless to say, I didn't get to my aunt's place when I expected to.
Highway 22 south is a beautiful drive - all twisty and hilly going through the foothills of the Rockies until all of the sudden you find yourself spat out onto highway #3.
You'd think I'd have been smart enough to bring my aunt's address along, but no, of course not. How many brown houses could there possibly be along the river in Blairmore? Fortunately, not many, and no others that look like hers.
Auntie Marion's place tends to be a hub of activity whenever I'm there with all of the cousin's popping in at least once. It probably didn't hurt that there was a wedding going on on Saturday, so everyone was around.
I was ecstatic when she suggested that we go saskatoon picking while taking Harlo for a walk. I'm afraid I've missed the best part of the berry season back home, but darn it, it's going to find its way to me somehow. It was that night that we learned dogs like saskatoons straight from the tree. Good taste!

A Tale of Dinosaurs and Mosquitoes

Tenting is great because you go to sleep when the sun goes down and wake up when one of the following happens: the snoring guy in a tent 3 sites down wakes you up; the sound of birds wakes you up; the rain falling on your tent, turning it into a giant drum wakes you up. It was the latter in this case, and with it being daylight out and me not having a watch, I figured I had slept in. In reality, it was probably no later than 6:00. No matter. The IGA in town was 24 hours, the bank machine didn't care when a person took money out, and there were plenty of trails around to explore. I decided to check one out very close to the dino museum, expecting a very rudimentary path with fauna overtaking the walking space. Instead, it was a fully paved trail about 5 feet wide with the flora carefully trimmed to its edges.




It was a nice path, but built more for roller bladers, so I turned around and headed toward the Royal Tyrrell.



It has been 21 years since the last visit to the RTM. The seven-year-old in me came back out as soon as I got into the parking lot. I couldn't wait!



The first thing you see when you get into the gallery is this

Oddly enough, I saw more little kids terrified by this

The initial display was gorgeous. Set up like a posh art gallery, the exhibits were put in ornate frames, often on velvet backgrounds and classical music was piped in. This wasn't how the entire museum was, however.
Currently, they have a wonderful display on Charles Darwin and his theory of natural selection and evolution. The fossil displays include land, air and sea animals and they have gone to great trouble to separate the different eras and epochs in an effort to show how life has changed over millions of years.
The best part of course, are the dinosaur displays. Dozens of species have been pulled out of the Alberta badlands and many are on display here.

Once through the gallery, there is still the interpretive trail outside to walk around which is well worth the time. I unfortunately didn't have as much of that as I wanted (a person could easily spend 2 days at the RTM) and had to get out toward Brooks where the Dinosaur Provincial Park is located.
Along the way, I did stop by an area just south of Drumheller where the hoodoos are located. The hoowhats? Hoodoos! Yes, they are just as much fun to see as they are to pronounce. The sandstone that's been exposed after the last ice age is gradually eroded by rain and wind, but hoodoos have a harder stone cap on them that acts as a shelter from the elements, thus making the sandstone not as vulnerable to the elements. They are though, very delicate formations - delicate enough that this particular area is deemed protected by the provence.

The area near Brooks is a little deceiving. Most of the terrain is flat with some rolling hills here and there. When getting close to the park, one half expects to see slight variations in the geography like signs of the layered hills. In reality, there is none of that. All of the sudden, the earth just drops away and a huge expanse appears full of valleys and gulleys.

Now, this area is normally very arid, but over the past four days they've gotten a ton of rain. According to the interpreter I asked, that water has pooled all over the badlands and since mosquito eggs can lie dormant for 7 to 10 years, they are now in the middle of one of the worst mosquito attacks in recent memory - bad enough that the paleontologists that have been there for 30 or 40 years have never seen it like it is. I set up my tent swatting away at the pests and thought that it was merely a matter of being in some bush, but they were everywhere. If you had exposed flesh, they bit it. I'll be darned if the little cretins were going to stop me from getting some shots though, so I put up with them for about five hours until I nearly went mad and was forced to retire to the tent for some respite.







The terrain is very cool and chalk full of mule deer. If you're lucky (or unlucky perhaps) you might run into a rattle snake or black widow spider. I'm glad I learned this after I went trucking around everywhere.

Up, Up and Away

Air travel still fascinates me. I can walk onto a tin can, have a seat and be in Calgary having breakfast with my cousin in 1/8th the time it would take to drive. That's how the trip began. After collecting some maps from AMA and going on a goose chase for a GPS attachment for the Nikon, we ended up at Avis so I could pick up the little Hundai Accent to boot around in for the next two weeks. It's a lot of fun to drive, but for crying out loud, would someone please stock some manual transmission cars? How does anyone drive through the mountains with auto transmissions? And while on the subject of renting cars, never rent from the airport. Instead, go to a rental place in town where it will probably be at least 100 dollars a week cheaper.

It was probably close to 1pm before I managed to get to MEC. The Calgary store is huge! The clientel is, well, it's everyone. I don't think it's possible to nail it down to a certain demographic. The product selection is just that much larger too. I managed to get one of the last two hybrid sleeping bags they had in stock, replaced my sunglasses that broke in my camera bag, picked up a compass and a foldable wash basin and grabed the Tarn 2 tent.
With gear in tow, it was time to get to Citytv Calgary to meet up with my colleagues in master control. Murry played the part of tourguide and I think I finally understand why things go awry. The amount of daily tasks those guys have to deal with is crazy. It was so good to finally be able to put faces to voices too. Derry, Murray and I hit up a local pub afterward to take in a local lager and I managed to lose the car. Not that the car was lost, I just couldn't find it. Chalk it up to the wonderful sense of direction that I have. Once we did track it down,(thanks Derry) it was time to bid farewell and get on the road to Drumheller.

It takes about an hour to get from Calgary to Drumheller. This is just enough time to ensure that if one gets out of Calgary at 20:00, she will pull into the visitor information parking lot just as the employee is turning the open sign to closed. Now what? As fate would have it, the closest tenting place to the Royal Tyrrell Museum had one tenting spot left. The close proximity of said site to the bathrooms would at first seem ideal. It is if you get there when the sun has already set with a brand new tent and no light of your own. Such predicaments attract kind people with lanterns. Many thanks to the guy that took the time even though he was still sore from doing a half ironman along with his wife in the last 24 hours. If one wants to fall asleep quickly, don't pick the high traffic spot by the washrooms.

Minneapolis

When given the opportunity to take a free trip, one should never turn it down. There's a caveat in there somewhere, but this is not a trip it would apply to. So off we went, the three of us: 2 researchers and a photobug. Floodwaters have been threatening Fargo for the last three weeks, and they've been sandbagging and building mud dikes for the last while, so needless to say, we ended up taking highway 59 down. Those that have ever done any southward travel know that getting into the U.S. is always a fun time. Luckily, we had a nice border security man who was very reasonable and informed us that next time we were crossing over and were taking plant specimens, they must be accompanied by the proper paperwork. Also, passports are going to be mandatory as of this summer, so if you don't have one, it's time to get on that. The "I'm just along for the ride" reason for entering the States didn't even faze him, although, what else is a person supposed to say? I'm going shopping? Pfff! Who'd believe that?

The terrain through Minnesota is beautiful. The road winds around lakes, there are hawks everywhere, and at one point close to the Mississippi, we must have seen between 6 and 8 bald eagles flying.






They also have very strange rest stop names.

Eight hours of driving went by quickly, and we got to Minneapolis just in time for rush hour on a Friday afternoon. Now, I drove the freeways in Europe during high-traffic times, and contrary to what I heard about them, the system there made sense. Speed limits of 130km/h were rarely followed, which made the average speed probably closer to 140km/h and I never saw one traffic officer. The big difference however, is all highway exits are on the right-hand side of the highway. All overtaking is done to the left-hand side of the slower vehicle. This system ensures that you are never crossing into the path of a faster moving vehicle as you are slowing down. Not so in Minnesota. Some turn-offs are on the right, some are on the left, and you have people overtaking from all sides because of it. Speed limits are 10km/h slower and traffic enforcement is prominent. North America has it all mixed up, methinks. Nevertheless, thanks to some great driving and great navigating, we got to our place of rest.


The Historic Faculty House is right near the U of M campus and Dinkytown. It's a gorgeous, huge, old sorority house used frequently by professors from other universities. The welcome was more than friendly and our host was very helpful. He recommended we try the Kafe421 four blocks away for a meal. The food was delicious, it had a great atmosphere, and catered very well to a vegan diet. Sleep came quickly that night - tomorrow was going to be busy.

Breakfast was provided in the morning, and we all got off to an early start. My sister and her colleague booked off to their conference, and I set out to traipse around Minneapolis.


It is interesting how walking around a place with a camera will attract certain people. Usually it's other photographers, and usually the ice-breaker line is, "Get any good shots?" It's fantastic. This also usually allows the foreigner to ask the native if there's anything photo worthy around. This particular fellow pointed out that I was walking to the Walker (hahaa) and wondered if I had any clue how far it actually was. Oh yes - I had every intention of making the four mile trek on foot. It was worth every step.





The architecture in downtown Minneapolis is wonderful and the area is totally walkable.
It's also interesting to see how different cities work from street level.

If I had to choose one place downtown as a favourite, oddly enough, it would be the Hennepin County Law Courts building and grounds. Brilliant!

The one thing I had my heart set on seeing this time around was the spoon bridge in the sculpture garden. Well, wouldn't you know it, they had taken the cherry off the spoon for restoration. However, that didn't make the rest of the park any less enjoyable. There are some great sculptures.

I quickly popped into the Walker Art Center gift
shop to check things out and warm up a little bit. Had I more time, I would have taken in the
exhibits, but light fades fast and I didn't want to waste daylight hanging around inside. On the way back, I found myself in Loring Park. The squirrels seemed friendly enough, but I was told by a passing man to be careful - they eat photographers. Vicious things!

What used to be the old flour mills and the like near the river are slowly being turned into condos and lofts. It's an interesting concept and it looks like it has the potential to be a very successful project.

After eight hours or so, I decided to call it a day and head back to the B&B. A couple hours later, I was back out the door, joining a few of the presenters for a beer or two at a nearby pub. It's always enjoyable to talk to people who live and work in the city a person is visiting. Sometimes the outsider's view of the city's workings clash with the reality of the whole thing. A person hears what works and what doesn't and just where good intentions end and short-sightedness begins. After some very interesting conversation, we decided to part. Most headed off to a concert, but my sis and I were completely knackered and decided to call it a night. The rain that had started in the middle of the evening had turned to large flakes of snow, so the run back was actually quite refreshing.
One thing that struck me very odd about the day was just how dead the downtown seemed to be. The streets were next to empty. Maybe everyone goes out to the Mall of America on Saturday afternoons - I don't know. Perhaps the recession has dug its teeth in. I never did bring it up with the locals; I really should have.




The drive back the next day was fairly uneventful until we got near Fargo. It was there we actually got to see the flooding situation and it's not pretty. The I-29 was closed after Grand Forks and water, many feet deep, was flooding fields and ditches as far as the eye could see. All the best to the people in the area.

The crossing back into Canada was very much uneventful, as was the rest of the trip. It was a whirlwind, but very interesting just the same.

Ipres

There's this saying about lemons and lemonade. Getting lost would lead me to a city with - an IKEA! Wo0t! Time to raid their foodstuffs! The prices in Euros here for furniture is almost the same as it is in the States. Meaning, the locker that I picked up for 100 bucks US costs 100 Euros. That's nearly 200 bucks - oi. Guess I'll have to settle on chocolate and wafers. Can't really fit that sofa into my backpack anyway.
Back on the motorway to Ipres, I figured that the first thing I have to do upon arrival is find the tourist info, as there comes a time when one realises it's futile to try to find lodging in a foreign land by herself. Smartest decision so far since I booked the plane ticket.
They phoned the b&b for me, made sure there was room, handed me maps of the city as well as a very detailed one on how to get to the place, and sent me on my way.
The woman there was extremely welcoming, spoke 5 languages, and immediately got me set up with information and pictures to familiarize myself with the town. Off I went, camera in tow, to the Menin Gate one again to get some photographs.
Ipres is a city of about 40 000 people. It's very walkable, bicycle paths are incorporated into the infrastructure everywhere (as it is all over Belgium) and has a very safe feel. No matter where you go, there are people strolling along. There aren't a bunch of yobs out on the street just being anti-social, and I noticed next to no grafitti or other vandalism.

Now, if you're ever planning on touring the WW1 sites, I strongly suggest staying in Ipres. Everything you could want to see in a day or two time is right around the town. I would also suggest renting a vehicle; taxi-ing it would cost a fortune, the sites are too far away from each other to easily walk to, and even though you probably could bike to them all, it would probably take 4 days in what you could do in 1 driving. The other option would be to get in on one of the many tours that operate out of the town and will set you back about 45 euros or so.

The hostess of the b&b set me up with a full list of sites, including map and descriptions of each. I got to the first cemetery and was kind of slapped upside the head. You don't really think about the numbers killed until you see stone after stone in front of you. That was a small one in comparison to the rest I'd see that day. Thousands and thousands in the French cemetery - all marked by a cross. The Aussie memorial was one of the most peaceful places I'd ever been to. It was more like a park - indescribable really - will let the pictures do the talking for that one. Then Tyne Cot. Good Lord. It's the largest Commonwealth cemetery in the world with over 11000 (I believe) buried there. That does't include the thousands and thousands with no known grave listed on the walls. In an effort to put it in perspective: they are currently re-engraving the stones - the first time since they were placed. It will take 5 workers 4 years to finish the job. After that was the Canadian memorial followed by a German cemetery. It's much different than any other, and maybe it's all psychological, but the feeling there was also much different - more at ill-ease than the allied places.

By this time, light was was fleeting, so I headed back to the b&b, dropped off the car, and walked back into the centre of the city looking for things to be amused by. Found my way into a restaurant where the beef goulash was delicious and the atmosphere nice. That is, until some Brit with a chip on his shoulder decided that his meal was unsatisfactory and proceded to insult the restauarnt manager's capabilities, the food, and the service. A full-out yelling match insued with the customer's wife trying desperately to be civil and neither man backing down. Needless to say, that cleared out the entire table beside me and left the place very quiet for a good while.
Back to the b&b that night with Belgian chocolates in tow and determination not to eat them. Once the ol' noggin hit the pillow, it was goodnight Charlie until 8:30 the next morning.

That's it for now. More later!

Vimy and the Menin Gate

If there's any war memorial you should visit in your life, make it Vimy. I had no clue how incredibly massive the place is until I got into the park. All of the trenches have been preserved ( as in, the area has not been farmed and has just been left to grass over ) and it's acres and acres of this. You go winding around roads and then pop out where you can see the memorial and it just hits you in the pit of your stomach.
Two days prior was the official ceremony, but the guides working there decided to put on a small ceremony at 11:00. There must have been close to 300 people there, a great deal of them fellow Canucks. It's kind of strange - you have no idea who any of these people are, but just that common bond in nationality is enough to just go up to someone and start chatting with them like you've seen them before. There were even a few Canadian servicemen there - one of them from the airborn division in Vancouver.
The service was quite emotional. I think most people were fine up until they started the pipes and then a good number of people started wiping their eyes, including myself. What an experience!
The rest of the day there was spent going through the cemeteries, walking around the grounds, and touring the underground tunnels they used during WW1. Built by the British, they were used by the troops to move supplies and fresh men in, served as a momentarily safe passage for the runners, and were bunking quarters for a fortunate few. To think, the distance between the Germans and the Allies was less than 100m for a significant part of the stalemate at Vimy. A person doesn't realise how close that is until she's standing at the Allied lines, looking over the brow of the ridge to the Axis side. Incredible.

I figured I could still make it to Ipers that night for the Last Post at the Menin Gate. So, I booked it out of Vimy and made a detour in Kortijk where I thought I could easily find a hostel or tourist info. Ha! Easy doesn't exist on this trip. Under the impression that both French and Flemmish are spoken in Belgium, I thought I could make sense of things. Noooooo. Road signs are in Flemmish. Town names on signs are mostly just in Flemmish and the translations can be significantly different. I finally gave up and headed for Ipers - just in time too, 'cause the ceremony had already started and what I thought was just going to be the last post was a huge to-do!
Easily a thousand people, maybe 2 or 3 were packed in the streets and under the gate itself to see the pipers, marching bands, a choir, and buglers. I don't think a person could ask for a better Remembrance Day than this. To see the appreciation that the people here still have is very humbling.
Now to find a place to stay. Long story short - I got lost and ended up back in France about 50 km away in Lomme.

Day 1 & 2 - Surprise!

So' the flight over was a breeze - security in the airports, at least from what I encountered has become much more relaxed since the last time I flew. The landing into Heathrow was no less than smooth and it took no time at all to get my luggage, although there was already a casualty - the rain fly was gone off my pack - I forsee a problem with this in England later on. At least the pack was there and not just the rainfly - that would have sucked!
So after making my way onto the tube system and changing at the Hammersmith station, I started seeing a lot of poppies on people's lapels. Nevermind the vetrans. Something was definitely going on. Since I'm nosey, I started to enquire and as it turned out, London was having their big Remembrance Day ceremony that day. The queen lays a wreath at the cenotaph near Trafalgar Square and thousands of veterans take part in a parade complete with royal salute from Prince Edward along with a large gun brought in by horse cart to mark the beginning of two minutes of silence. It was a sight to behold. And the security! Good lord. Ironic, since it's a day to mark the exchange of lives for freedom.
By this time, a good few hours had passed and I figured I'd best be heading for Boulogne-Sur-Mer, so hopped on the train at Charing Cross station and started heading for Dover. Once at Dover, I was informed that the ferry to Boulogne had been shut down because the guy had been neglecting to pay his port fees, so I'd have to go to Calais and then take the train to Boulogne. I figured time would be tight, but had no clue how tight it would turn out to be.
Once at the ferry port, a group of us got a short bus ride to the Police de Frontier where we all got off, had our passports stamped, then got on the bus, only to drive another few hundred meters, be let off the bus again so our stuff could go through x-ray and us through metal detectors, then on the bus again to be let off at a waiting room near the dock. The whole experience was kind of unsettling for some reason.
By this time it was good and dark and by the time we got to Calais, it was nearly 8PM. A bus took us to the main railway station and I got off thinking this should be relatively easy. It would have been (sort of) if a) I spoke French well enough to pass as a native b) the train came every hour or so, c) the station wasn't littered with a bunch of drunks and d) I had change on me.
The ticket office was closed, so with the help of a guy who said he was from Finland and was living in Belgium, figured out what the ticket machine said. Then the trick was to get change, since the machine refused my Visa card (not chip and pin I suspect). The guy was nice enough to sit and chat with me until my train got there, as he didn't seem prepared to let this little waif of a thing sit in the station alone surrounded by drunks. It turned out that another passenger on the ferry was also headed to Boulogne, so I boarded with him, and once in Boulogne, he helped me get my directions sorted out as to how to get to the hostel.
So I got there - about 3 minutes after they had closed. It was a punch code system to get in, so I stood there randomly punching numbers in 'cause, well, what else was I going to do? Luckily, the person running the joint came to the door and let me in. Whew!!

In the morning, I made my way downstairs for breakfast and joined my roommate. Between my horrific French and her decent English, we somehow managed a conversation. I left Boulogne in the morning going back to Calais to get my rental car. Thanks to Google maps, I thought this should be easy to get to the place.

After wandering around trying to figure out which way north was, I found tourist info, manned by a woman who seemed to have no want to actually help tourists. So, I finally squeezed directions out of her to get to where google told me I'd find the rental and I started hoofing it. Well, google screwed me over. I don't know where I ended up, but I managed to get propositioned by some jackass. Get me out of this city! I booked it back to the tourist place and stood on the street, maps blowing in the 50+ km/h winds. And then a voice out of nowhere. "Do you speak English?" Thank God, the Aussies had come to rescue me!

Now, normally I'd be the last person to accept a ride from a total stranger, but they had this rental van with children's drawings all over the exterior. Not exactly subtle. It was a wild goose chase to find the rental place. Once again, more service people who had no want to talk to English-speaking foreigners would be less than helpful. I was starting to get the feeling that a person could be attacked here and if they were screaming for help in English, people would just walk past them. Well, we finally found the rental place and I booked it out of there as fast as I could go to Arras which is a beautiful city with helpful people. The hostel was booked solid, but the nice guy pointed me to a budget hotel on the edge of the city. It was clean, warm, and out of the elements - hooray!

Driving in Europe, if you've never done it before is something else. I've yet to figure out if there are, in fact, any rules. But the motorways are gorgeous and they move!