Back to Calgary
2011/09/28
Started the day with a visit to the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Drumheller. I was just there a few years ago, but it’s an excellent museum and worth revisiting, and as it turns out they did change a few exhibits since my last visit. A few pics:
Then a short drive to Calgary (via a favorite back way that has very little traffic).
Another new thing since last time: a large wind farm just south of the Drumheller canyon. This dash-cam photo only shows three out of at least twenty giant windmills dotting the hilltops along the road:
Highlight of the drive was catching sight of the mountain silhouettes before I had even reached the outskirts of Calgary:
Got my room, then went to pick up Frink from Mount Royal – where I started my Comp Sci undergrad (it was only a college back then). Wandered around the campus a bit taking pictures. Dropped in on the CS department – the only faculty member I knew who was present still remembered me 15 years later, which was a nice surprise.
The Mount Royal campus has changed slightly since I was there. Mainly in the addition of new buildings outside the sprawling central one. But also some internal changes. One of my favorite study areas is gone, replaced with more walled-in rooms.
This wall used to be all full-height window, and looked in on the tech services department that I worked in, repairing computers, when I was a student there:
Although this was actually before I was a student here, there used to be a small arcade beside these stairs in the phys ed wing. It’s the only place I’ve ever seen a Robby Roto machine, and got to play it after years of wondering about screenshots in Electronic Games magazines:
But my high scores are still up on the board – my President’s Honor Roll plaques from the two years I was there:
After that, went looking for the place I had planned to buy new tires for the Slaywagon, but it appears to have gone out of business. Did some book shopping, then met Sean and Bud for sushi downtown and had some good conversation for a few hours.
Drove Frink home after that, and nearly hit a deer on the road. For days now I’ve been internally grousing that I haven’t seen any moose on this trip (on previous trips we’ve had close encounters with meese in northern Ontario and in Riding Mountain Park), and here I nearly intersect a deer right in the big city.
[gmap file=”__UPLOAD__/2011/09/20110928.kml” visible=”true” center=”files” zoom=”auto” type=”satellite”]
to Drumheller
2011/09/27
I had originally planned a one-day layover in Saskatoon, as there were a number of museums I was interested in seeing. Unfortunately the must important one, the Saskatchewan Railway Museum, is already closed for the season. So I decided to only stay for one night, and start the day with a quick visit to the Saskatoon branch of the Western Development Museum.
It’s a decent museum. I was most impressed with their collection of freakish antique farm equipment, many of which I hadn’t seen before.
Luxury tractor – unpopular because it cost twice what its competitors did, but it did sell because it had headlights, which enabled working at night:
Tractor conversion kit for early Fords – flopped because the car didn’t have enough power, even with the gearing-down this kit applied:
This thing is freakin huge. Not even the modern 12-wheeled tractors they use in the mud near Winnipeg are this bulky:
This contraption (a Saskatchewan invention, I think) was for stacking and binding cut hay. There was a contract to mass produce it, but production was stalled by the Great Depression, and when that was over the modern type of combine had been invented and the job this machine did was no longer relevant:
More random machines:
“Why?” department: Of all the representatives you could have chosen…
After the museum, drove to Drumheller. Long drive, but not as bad as yesterday.
This scene:
I snapped because it reminded me of this Valve concept art:
And here’s the government mind control device near Alsask:
And of course, you can’t go to Drumheller without visiting the hoodoos. This must be at least the eighth time I’ve been here:
My self-portrait for today:
[gmap file=”__UPLOAD__/2011/09/20110927.kml” visible=”true” zoom=”auto” type=”satellite” center=”files”]
Middle Manitoba
2011/09/24
Today I took a little detour up to the region between Lake Winnipeg and Lake Manitoba. There was a property advertised for sale there in Dignam’s, and since it’s only an hour’s drive from Winnipeg I thought it might be worth checking out.
The land was advertised, if I recall correctly, as having a significant portion of marshland, possibly suitable for birdwatchers. Well, I couldn’t even reach the property as all approaching roads were closed due to flooding. I tried driving this one despite the water lapping at the edges of the road, but it got me no closer:
So, not being able to reach the property because of water, I’ll have to assume the bit about it being marshy is true.
If it floods like this in the fall, I hate to think what spring must be like. I know Manitoba suffered uncommon flooding this year, but I also know uncommon flooding is common for the flat part of the province. Scratch this area off my buy list.
Since I was in the area, I decided to check out nearby Delta Beach and St. Ambriose Provincial Park. My mother and I camped here once, and all I remember about it is that the park was filled with incredibly dense clouds of mosquitoes. I thought it would be nice to see the big lake too, but all approaches were closed due to flooding, and indeed most of the houses in St. Ambroise were sandbagged. Not a good sign.
Continued on via back roads to Riding Mountain National Park, where I took the less-used east entrance – it’s a rough gravel road, but really beautiful. Especially in the fall:
Here’s the view to the northeast from the top of the escarpment. Riding Mountain is very high for the prairies.
I think the purple haze in the distance is from farmers burning stubble.
Riding Mountain is where I learned to appreciate the potential beauty of swamps. They look best in the fog, but here’s a couple anyway:
I’m staying in Wasagaming for the next two nights – taking a one-day break from driving. I plan to mainly sit on the beach and read my book. Here’s the nice little cabin I have to myself:
It’s not quite as fancy as the place I like to stay at Long Beach, but it’ll do in a pinch.
I was hoping to see a movie tonight in Wasagaming’s unique log theater, but unfortunately it’s closed for the season.
After sunset I sat on the beach and watched the stars come out. That was enjoyable.
Minnows minnowing in the lake:
Some more fall color shots:
Generic beauty shots:
From earlier in the day, a field of mixed wheat and drying sunflowers. I think the sunflowers are the crop here – that green in the background before the trees is also all sunflowers. Not sure why there is also grain here – maybe to distract birds from the sunflower seeds?
And a couple shots of abandoned buildings:
(That’s Riding Mountain in the background of the last shot; this building is right at the junction of #5 and #19, the road that goes into the park from the east.)
Passed through the town of Neepawa on the way – it’s a very nice town. I’m impressed with how pleasant it is, and despite appearing quite small it somehow supports a Safeway, a Co-Op and a McDonald’s. I also generally like the landscapes in and around Riding Mountain. Too bad there’s no major cities nearby; I’d go crazy with boredom living in this area.
[gmap file=”__UPLOAD__/2011/09/20110924.kml” visible=”true” type=”satellite” center=”files” zoom=”auto”]
Wasagaming and Clear Lake
2011/09/25
Today was a mini-vacation – a break from driving, at one of my favorite places, Riding Mountain National Park – specifically the town of Wasagaming, which is on Clear Lake.
Had breakfast at the aforementioned restaurant that turned me off milk for two years – decided to give them a second change, decades later – and it was not bad. I didn’t have any milk though.
After that, I went and walked around the campground for a bit. We used to camp here frequently in our Manitoba days. I don’t have many specific memories of it, but still a general feeling of happy nostalgia washed over me while I was walking around. Plus it’s beautiful. Here’s what a typical campsite looks like:
Lots of room, a picnic table and fireplace, and enough trees between sites to give a bit of privacy. The sites are all open at both ends onto roads that look like these:
If you’re camping here, the preferred way to get around and go into town is by bicycle, but it’s an easy walk too.
I walked around town a bit. Here’s the old firehall:
And I went back to the favorite ice cream parlour and bought the favorite ice cream – two scoops on a double cone:
As a kid I was amazed by these weird mutant double-headed ice cream cones, and wondered how they made them. Seldom saw them anywhere else so I still associate them with Riding Mountain.
By accident I discovered an old memory. This purple martin birdhouse:
inspired me as a child – I wanted to make birdhouses all fancy like that. When we got back to the farm I did build some birdhouses, some of them multi-story, but they didn’t turn out quite as fancy as this. :)
My main mission for to day was to sit around near the beach contemplating my cross-Canada road trip, what it means to me, and what I want out of life.
To that end, I spent some time lying down on a picnic table, watching the breeze rustle the leaves on these trees:
Which is a really relaxing thing to do – I can’t recommend staring up at trees enough. Might want to wear glasses though to keep falling things out of your eyes.
I also went out onto the jetty next to the beach, and sat here for a while, thinking:
Watching the wind raise ripples in the water, and the jetty shape interference patterns in the ripples, was also relaxing.
I was finally starting to get into this whole thinking thing seriously when a hornet crawled up my shirt and bit me on the chest. OUCH! I haven’t been bitten by a mandibled insect since I was a kid and I forgot how much it hurt. I rushed back to my room to disinfect it and see if there was a stinger present – no, but it swelled up a fair bit. By the end of the afternoon the swelling was gone but the bite still stung.
That kind of interrupted my chain of thought. I went and sat near the beach again, but kept getting interrupted by more bugs crawling on me, so eventually I gave up on trying to get any serious thinking done today.
Still, it was a nice day off from driving and I definitely did get some good relaxing in. From here it’s the home stretch back to Vancouver, with a brief stopover in Calgary, and then my road trip will be done.
More fall color photos:
At the end of the day, I went back out to get some sunset photos – nothing spectacular due to lack of clouds, but it was nice.
[gmap file=”__UPLOAD__/2011/09/20110925.kml” visible=”true” type=”satellite” center=”files” zoom=”auto”]
to Saskatoon
2011/09/26
Wow, this was a long day. I was behind the wheel for nine hours today – by far the longest day on this trip in terms of driving time. Do not want to do that again.
Left Wasagaming via the north exit from Riding Mountain park – here’s the view to the north.
I’ve only ever been this way once before, when my mother went to see some sort of motivational speaker in Dauphin and I went along for the ride. I don’t remember much about Dauphin at all, and I elected to bypass it this trip.
Next stop to the west was Roblin, which we went to several times while we lived at the farm. I don’t recall why we went there though. There was a playground I liked that had one of those fat, short, shiny slides – it got scalding hot in summer. And this building:
used to have an arcade in the basement. It’s the only place I have ever seen a Black Widow machine – that game was really hard to play. This is also either where I first played Stargate, or where I most played it. Mastering those space cadet controls was half the challenge.
On one of our trips to Roblin, I discovered a hard lump on my elbow. We went to a local doctorb to have it looked at. She said it was just a skin cyst and would grow out in a couple of years. Well, here I am more than twenty years later and it’s still there, unchanged. That’s how I know it’s a Thought Police tracking device. :)
Moving on from Roblin, I stopped for lunch in Yorkton, then got on to what we called “the back way”, which was the most direct route between our farm and Calgary – mostly consisting of highway 15. It cuts straight across Saskatchewan, passing between Regina and Saskatoon. We liked this route because it was more direct, and had much less traffic than the more standard Trans-Canada or Yellowhead Highway routes. I wanted to revisit it at least partway for old time’s sake.
Well, it never was a terribly great road but now it’s in awful shape. Some sections have nasty pothole problems and sags from heavy grain trucks and farm equipment abusing it, and some parts have even been replaced with gravel – an improvement over the state of the adjoining paved sections.
One thing I remember about this route now – it seemed interminable. That is still true. The road is very straight and very flat. It mostly looks like this:
My destination for today was Saskatoon but I took a slight detour to visit the town of Outlook, because I wanted to rephotograph two landmarks there.
The first was a roadside… thingy… called Boot Hill – basically a fence with dozens of different kinds of boots nailed to it. I didn’t find it today, but perhaps I didn’t go quite far enough. Not a big deal.
The second was the impressive train bridge over the river valley near the town:
The train tracks have been removed and it’s now the longest foot bridge in Canada – more than three quarters of a mile long. I think it might be part of the Trans-Canada Trail now.
Here’s the view from the town end:
And looking south from the middle of the bridge, towards where I took the first picture:
After that, I just continued on to Saskatoon and got my room for the night.
Here are a couple more prairie ruins for you:
[gmap file=”__UPLOAD__/2011/09/20110926.kml” visible=”true” type=”satellite” zoom=”auto” center=”files”]
