Day 10 - Calgary

Sunday in Calgary was a bit of a recovery day (from a few too many ales the night before). Tong-master Shane (above, hard at work at the BBQ) put on a bit of a barbeque & invited a few people around. It was all very civilised & the weather even played nice with clear skies & warm weather. We even had to put up the umbrella to stop us getting sunburnt! Calgary didn't get much of a summer this year so the locals were impressed that we'd bought the sunshine with us from Australia.

I say Shane put on a bit of a barbeque.... That might have been a bit of an understatement. He put on a proper gourmet spread. He had Laura & Kerri helping him with preparation. The stuffed chicken breasts (below) were his masterpiece. Nobody went hungry or dissatisfied.

Canadian life isn't that different to Australia.

Day 9 - Banff Lakes & Calgary

After another rough night's sleep I decided to get out of bed & go & take some photos of Lake Louise at sunrise. The hotel was a couple of minutes walk away so armed with the camera & the tripod, set off for the lake shore.I only have a few minutes to get organised before the sun started to make its presence known. The pinks & oranges early in the morning help photographers the world over & Lake Louise is no exception. Within 20 minutes the show was over (below). It's still pretty spectacular without the pink light.

At 1661m above sea level, Lake Louise isn't too far below the tree line. You can see the line of yellow trees on the slopes of Fairview Mountain (above & below) to the South Of Lake Louise. They're larch trees. They're a conifer & have needle leaves similar to pine & spruce trees. The interesting thing about them is that they're deciduous. In other words the needles go yellow in autumn & fall off. They are a magnet to landscape photographers in September & October because the yellow is so vibrant, almost florescent.

We headed back to the hotel for breakfast & checkout (& we were very glad to get out of there). Great position..... That's about it.
After breakfast we headed out to Moraine Lake (15kms away) only to find out that it's in shadow early in the day in the colder months. We turned around & decided to head north along the Icefields Parkway in the hope that the weather would play nice. No such luck. It was still cloudy & windy just like the couple of days previous. We walked up to the Peyto Lake lookout (below) & arrived just as two busloads of tourists swamped us. We took a couple of quick photos & scarpered.

We headed back to Moraine Lake. By the time we arrived the cars were parked up along the entrance road for half a mile (it figures as it was a Saturday after all). We were lucky enough to snag a car park in close & took the short walk to the top of the rock pile as we'd done a number of times before.

No matter how many times I visit Moraine Lake & the Valley of Ten Peaks, the impact value is still there. It's easily my favourite scenic spot in Canada.

We said goodbye to the beautiful lake & made tracks for Calgary. We took the scenic drive along the Bow Valley Parkway between Lake Louise & Banff. We made a short stop at Morant's Curve (below). It's a popular place to take photos of passing trains with nice scenery in the background.

Magpies are common in Canada, but in the year & a half we lived there I never managed to take a photo of one. On one of our scenic stops, I managed to catch one with the camera. They're different to their Australian namesakes, but they're just as resourceful.

One last stop for a photo of Castle Mountin (with blue sky behind it at last!) before the hour or so drive back to Cowtown (Calgary).After a couple of hours of down time at Shane & Laura's place we headed to Limericks to meet up with some of our Canadian friends. There were some missing faces that night, but it was a pretty good turn out considering. There was a lot of catching up done over quite a few drinks. We miss our Canadian friends.

The side story from the night is what was on the TV (as seen behind the gang).... Ultimate Fighting. I'd seen it before but never really giving it much interest. The Canadians love it! I guess it fills the violence void in the off season for hockey (Canadian football doesn't really cut it). We were watching it on & off during the night. It's a bit like watching a car crash. Horrible to watch but you can't turn away. Those who have seen decent bouts will know what I mean.

Day 4 - Sydney to Calgary

After a late finish at the concert the night before, we dragged ourselves out of bed for the start of the long commute to Calgary. At 7.15am we were on the train to the airport for the true start of the adventure. The flight was to be the longest of the trip (14 hrs) from Sydney to Vancouver. The Boeing 777's (above) do the job, but Air Canada just aren't in the same league as the likes of Singapore Airlines when it comes to in-flight entertainment, comfort & service.We arrived in Vancouver to miserable wet conditions although still quite warm and humid. A two hour stop over was all we had before hopping onto one of Air Canada's Embraer E190's (above). They're great little planes. New, comfortable &, being a small aircraft, little waiting time to board or leave the plane or collect baggage. When we arrived in Calgary an hour or so later, the temperature on the ground was +4 C. It was overcast & miserable. What had we done?!

We picked up the hire car (more on that later) & headed for Shane & Laura's place. A quick bag drop & we were heading into town to close bank accounts & buy a few supplies for the next week or so.Back at the house, we sorted our gear out & caught up with Shane & Laura. We also met their cat Chloe (above). Chloe has a neat trick. She plays fetch with her stuffed toys. Clever Kitty!

After the long day of travel, sleep was our best friend.

Packing up

Almost as soon as Julie was on her flight back to the UK, we started the mammoth task of packing up our apartment, selling everything off and set ourselves for the big exit. I was able to sell most of the big ticket items to our Canadian friends. The bulk of the remainder went like hotcakes once I posted them on the "Buy/Sell Misc" on the intranet at work. I was almost tempted to steal stuff off the neighbours and sell it off as well. I haven't quite finished offloading it. Maybe tomorrow.
I have two days left at work and then no work for about two months! This weekend we have a four day trip down to Waterton National Park with a sneak across the border to Glacier National Park in Montana thrown in. At the end of next week, we're off to South America for 6 weeks. After the sortie' across the equator, we're back in Calgary for three nights to pick up our stuff and close out a few things before the 30 hr flight back to Perth.

Spring Snow

The weather dealt us yet another surprise today. The forecast was for -2 and a "Chance" of flurries during the early morning. (For the uninitiated, "Flurries" involves very light snow)
HA! They got the temperature about right, but flurries ended up as a major snow dump in the morning of 10" (we know that for sure because someone set up a piece of cardboard with inch markers on it, outside the office. The 10" was probably more than that because the temp hovering around zero meant that the snow kept melting. The storm cleared out around lunch only to crank up at 3pm with another 4" or so.
Needless to say, there were a bunch of road accidents this morning and the main arterial into the city were parking lots. The locals hate the snow, but it's still got the novelty factor for me.

Remember my "Rain Gauge Canada Style" from the first snow of the year? This is a photo of the exact same bench this morning after only 2 hrs of snow. MAD!!
Apparently these big dumps are quite common for this time of year, but they usually (if there's such a thing here) start in mid-late March. Having said all that, the 10"+ is a bigger than normal dump.

Blizzard

This morning we woke up to a full on blizzard! It's hardly surprising considering Shane's having a barbecue this afternoon. I haven't seen snow this heavy since..... I was down at Fernie.
The snow flakes are big fat ones and they're coming down almost horizontal. The winds are up around 30km/hr apparently.
The odd thing about all this is that the weather bureau still says it's cloudy and zero. Vastly different to blizzard and I'm guessing around -5.
The snow has stopped now but there's now about 5cm of snow on the ground (and on the cars). Not bad considering the storm lasted for less than an hour.

Life returns to Cowtown

 

Calgary has had a fairly brutal, but short winter this year. Last year apparently had record snowfalls, but this year has been crap for the ski resorts. In contrast, the east coast has been belted by snow and it's still going.

 

We've had some nice weather the last month and the birds have started to come back, starting with the Canada Geese (unfortunately they're the most annoying noisy bloody things!).

 

 

After months of being frozen, the rivers have started to defrost and flow again. Big chunks of ice break off and float downstream. These sometimes get stuck along to way (above).

 

Close behind the Canada Geese were the ducks. The Yellow Eyed Ducks (above) are the smaller variety of the ones I've seen.

I don't think I've been anywhere in the world that doesn't have mallard ducks. The North Americans seem to have an obsession with shooting at them (along with everything else that moves including each other.)

The plants are waking up as well. There are little signs all over the place that winter's strangle hold is releasing.

The Chinook

 

Our Savior!
The weather phenomenon that makes Calgary so livable is called the Chinook.
It's not unique around the world, but when it's -30 around most of Alberta, the Chinook is certainly the most welcome. It gives us a reprieve from the icebox bringing the temperatures back up close to zero and even +10 at times.
Needless to say, while the rest of Canada is living in an icebox from anywhere from -20 to -40, Calgary are "Basking" in sunny skies & above freezing temperatures. The margin for getting the benefit of the effect is quite small. Typically there band of warm weather runs from about 5kms from the foothills of the Rockies, to about 80kms out. This usually means Calgary is right on the edge. The narrow band of warm air is accompanied by clear skies & the boundary is distinctly marked by a cloud front (above).

Sunrise vs Moonset over the Rockies

The couple of days after the Eclipse were host to some pretty spectacular views from my desk at work. At the same time as the pink tint appeared in the sky from the Sunrise, the full moon set over the Rocky Mountains.

 

It was quite incredible to see how quickly the moon disappeared over the horizon. The time between the top photo and the one above was 18 minutes!
I quite the shot above as the moon was directly above the saddle in the mountains. If you look at the top photo, that same saddle is way over to the right of picture.
We're at the back end of our project at the moment and I'm struggling to get motivation to go to work, let along focus! Nature taunting me from across my desk isn't helping.

Lunar Eclipse

 

Tonight we had a lunar eclipse and for once in my life it wasn't in the middle of the night.

I gave the new camera (with zoom lens) and tripod a work out. I must have taken about 80 photos between catching the eclipse at different phases and mucking around with different camera settings. It was a good learning exercise with the camera. The only thing I couldn't get my head around was the little blue flare (see left & right pics). It seemed to be a reflection from the bright part of the moon bouncing around the long lens.

I'm now a bit dirty that I didn't have the SLR back in Oz last year when the comet went by.

Minus Stupid

Last week was bloody cold here in Calgary.

Monday morning we woke up to -32 with a wind chill factor dragging it down to -48! It only got up to -27 during the day. Tuesday a.m. was -34 & the top that day was -27 again. Wednesday morning was more of the same with -30. Finally by the afternoon was up to -15, but it's hardly a reprieve & -24 overnight wasn't either. The overnight temps were down around the -25 for the rest of the week & it wasn't until the weekend that it backed off during the day to -5. It's been a full week since the minimum temp was above -20.

I've been OK with the cold to this point, but once you get under -25, it's just plain nasty! You cover up every last bit of exposed skin, but you can't protect your eyes. They water like crazy to combat the stinging cold & the dry air. The biggest problem with that is that your eyelashes stick together. Makes it a bit hard to see.

Tomorrow's top temp prediction is -2! About time!

Winter Just Turned Nasty!

For days, all the weather reports on the news have been about a cold air mass on its way from the Arctic. Spot on lunchtime today the snow started coming down & the wind came with it. The temperature has dropped 8deg in no time & is predicted to go under -25 deg by tomorrow morning. (That's up for grabs as the Weather Bureau here is nothing better than a random numbers generation department. Bingo callers we like to call them.) There are even predictions of the -30 mark on Wednesday. I'll find out whether I can actually withstand true Canadian winter conditions this week. Kerri's going to hate it!

On the up side, this cold snap should have arrived some weeks ago. Word has it that this has been a very mild winter this year.

Execute Plan B

On Monday, Dale & I set of for Sunshine nice & early to hopefully take advantage of some fresh snow before the crowds trashed it.
We turned off the Trans-Canada with a relentless line of traffic around 8.15 & crawled all the way to the Sunshine car park. Usually at that time its a clear run straight to the first couple of rows of the car park. We made the decision to turn around & head back to Calgary. The Lake Louise experience was still fresh in our minds & we weren't about to go through that again.
The back-up plan was to go to the Canada Olympic Park (on the outskirts of Calgary) & just have a play. When we arrived, there were next to nobody there & we had the place pretty much to ourselves. The park has 3 short runs of varying degrees of difficulty, & 2 terrain parks. One of the main runs was quite steep but not beyond us. Fortunately it was steep enough to scare off most of the idiots & we had it to ourselves. We speared off that run straight into one of the terrain parks.
The big kids terrain park was a bit daunting for us, but the "progressive" terrain park was spot on. It has a mini half pipe, a couple of rails & a couple of little jumps (pictured is Dale on one). We gave the rails a miss, but had a play in the 1/2 pipe (we were crap at it) & practiced our jumping techniques.
At the end of the day, we had a bit of fun & didn't have to battle the crowds & ice in the mountains.

Learning how to use the new camera

I've been trying to get my head around how to use my new camera. It's a big step up from the point-&-shoot compact camera's that I've been using. There are so many extra settings & variables to try to understand. The camera came with a DVD to help & a CD with some tips for editing the photos. It's starting to come to me, but there will need to be a bunch of experimenting before I'm comfortable.
I'm hoping to have it sorted out by the time we get to Las Vegas & the Grand Canyon in 2 weeks.

Elbow River

Today we got sick of sitting around the apartment & decided to go for a walk to the Elbow river (a few blocks away).
Most of the waterways are frozen over now. The lakes & rivers in the mountains have been frozen for a while. The last few weeks, even the rivers & streams around Calgary have been frozen over (or at least partially). It's pretty cool really. You can see the city buildings in the background.

During our wander along Elbow River, I spotted some movement up river. An animal scurried from the island in centre of shot into the gap in the ice. I'm not sure whether it was an otter or a beaver (I think it was a beaver or otter) but it was cool to see so close to the centre of the city. I was way too slow to take a photo of whatever it was.

New Toy

I never would have thought to buy a DSLR camera back in Australia. Canada has that kind of scenery & wildlife that makes you want to get out & see the world & then, take photos of it. I decided that, as good as Kerri's camera is, it was time to upgrade. I'm sure we'll get plenty of use out of the new toy over the next two years and beyond.

The camera comes with a 18-55 zoom lens, but I also bought the 70-300 because I thought it would come in handy for shooting animals that are too dangerous to get close to. Waterton National park down near the Montana border is literally crawling with animals & we're going to be spending lots of time down there next Summer. I'm seriously considering a wide angle lens as well, although they're quite expensive. It would be nice to have because the awesome scenery in North America is, more often than not, very difficult to frame with a standard camera. I can see the uses for it back home & in NZ as well.

Car Turds

The Canadian winter sees vast herds of cars gather at shopping centre car parks during the day, huddling together to stay warm. Just before night fall they all move off to their dens across the city leaving unmistakable evidence of their presence..... CAR TURDS!
So the true story is that snowfall brings dangerous roads & even more dangerous drivers. The city councils seem to think it's a good idea to plough the roads (fair enough) & then spread sand/grit & salt on them to increase grip. The result is, the cars pick up the slushy mix of snow & grit with their tyres & deposit it under the wheel arches. Typically these deposits fall of when they get too big & fall off. It seems to be that shopping centre car parks are the most popular place. I guess the heat of the engine bay melts the snow & it simply slips off.
Thanks to my mate Jim M. for alerting me to the phenomenon & the terminology.

Minus 15 Barrier

It was cold today. It was -14C when I left for work, with a wind chill taking it to -24C! Oddly enough, the temperature kept dropping until about lunchtime when it was -16C. By the time I left work it was still around -16C but the wind chill was down to -27C.
Up to this point I've not been too bothered by the cold, but waiting for the bus this evening was starting to get a bit uncomfortable. Another 15-20 colder is going to be an experience. I can't say I'm looking forward to it.

Christmas Already?

Christmas fever is nutty over here. Every major department store has huge arrays of Christmas stuff & the locals get all excited.
So does Kerri, so I found out. She pleaded with me to buy a tree until I caved. We bought the tree & some decorations including lights for about $50. It'll be good enough for the next 2 years. The lights were my call & I found one set that has 16 different settings. Couldn't help myself.

Sunset from Work

I certainly have no problems with the view from my desk at work. The shorter days & the end of daylight saving has meant that I get to see some fantastic sunsets. This afternoon I snapped a few off & this was the pic of them. It doesn't do it justice, but you get the idea. The thing I like is the silhouette that the Rocky Mountains cast on the horizon. It's all about the mountains here.

Snow in Calgary

Remember the photo of our lovely green leafy street? Well, it's become decidedly colder over the last few weeks. The leaves turned yellow & then dropped off. This morning we woke up to this sight. It's snowed a few times before now, but this is the first time it's still been snowing in the daylight. It's still snowing now & doesn't look like letting up in the short term. The predicted top temperature today is +1 C. That remains to be seen.
The only time I've seen this before coming to Canada has been at ski resorts in New Zealand. It's pretty cool for an Aussie who doesn't see much snow. The locals hate it!

Later....
The snow's coming down heavier now & not just as tiny little pin points, but great big fluffy puffs. It's very cool! One thing that occurs to me when comparing rain to snow is that when snow falls, it is completely silent. Not only that, the snow lying around actually muffles other sounds.
Snow's hard to take photos of because the light isn't great & the snow is moving so you just end up with white streaks in the picture. Currently the temperature is -2 & they're predicting -10 for about the time I head off for work tomorrow morning. Oh Joy! Looks like winter has decided to stay.

No matter what the locals say, I like snow. It makes the place look bright & clean. If nothing else, it breaks up the browns of Autumn & Winter. Unfortunately today, once it stopped snowing, the temperature climbed enough for the snow to melt a bit & then everything turned kind of slushy & muddy.
All things going to plan, the ski lifts at Sunshine & lake Louise next weekend. Unfortunately, it may be delayed a week or so due to insufficient coverage at the resorts. We'll see.