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.