Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Dude Ranch

I spent the last couple of weekends camping at our favorite Dude Ranch down in the badlands, with my girls.  A couple of weeks ago I was down there with my eldest daughter Hailey, and my youngest daughter Helena.  We headed out for the weekend with my brother-in-law Shawn and his two kids, Bethany and Garrett.  We had a great time down at the ranch.  Garrett caught his first fish, and both of Shawn's kids got to go on their first trail ride.  Hailey had just learned to ride a bike without training wheels, and brought hers along for the weekend.  She spent most of the time that she wasn't on the back of a horse ripping around on her bike.  Margarit was out on Vancouver Island visiting friends with Annelise.  Helena is fearless around the horses and just can't get enough of hanging around the corrals.  We've decided that she needs to wait one more year before she can go out with her older sisters on a trail ride.

A week later, Annelise felt horse-deprived and needed to head out to the ranch.  So we took advantage of the opportunity and made it the annual Dad-and-Anna weekend.  There had been a lot of rain in recent days and it was very muddy.  But the two of us camped out, and spent most of the weekend out on trail rides, and hanging around with the horses.












Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Summer Hockey... Done

The Renegades Summer hockey season has come to an end.  We stretched out our playoff run somewhat, but couldn't quite make it to the finals.  I had a lot of fun this year, and now can take a month of, mostly to heal, before winter season starts up in September.  After losing to the Mighty Peking Ducks a few days ago, we went on to face Papa Johns Pizza.  We defeated them by a 4-1 score and then moved on to face The Wild.  I played against Papa John's but had to miss the game against The Wild.  The Wild finished first in the regular season.  With a short bench our team defeated them by a 7-4 score.  To this point in the playoffs the Renegades were responsible for eliminating three of the four teams that had been knocked out.  Last night we went to the semi finals, a re-match with the Mighty Peking Ducks.  Once again we had very short bench with a number of our guys hurt, away and suspended.  The game was tied 2-2 at the end of the second period.  But, the officials seemed to take offense to our rough style of play and called a steady stream of penalties, all against us.  By the end of the game we had 52 penalty minutes to only 2 for the Ducks.  Tempers started to flare as we all felt that the calls were unfairly one-sided.  We were pushing to try and come back from a 3-2 deficit late in the game and we just ran out of gas, and all the penalties caught up to us.  We ended our season with a 5-2 loss.  The Ducks now move on to the best-of-three final against the Henchmen.  The Henchmen are probably relieved to not have to face the Renegades!!

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

More Scans

The latest batch of Kodak 4x5 High Speed Infrared is now dry....   I've scanned a few of the best shots and posted them for comment.  These all date back to 2009 and 2010...











Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Summer Spent Indoors...

After the long weekend the girls spent several days out at Pigeon Lake.  Work was very busy for me, and this was right in the middle of a stretch of hockey games.  I had one evening to myself, which I spent processing some film.  This was mostly a backlog of old 4x5 Infrared Film that dates back to 2009.  This batch included a few sheets exposed on the recent long weekend trip to southern Alberta.  Then, this past weekend it was so cool and rainy that we didn't even consider heading out with the trailer, even though the girls and the trailer returned from the lake.  So I processed even more film, including a couple of rolls shot with the panoramic.  Even more is still drying as I write this, so I should have more scans to post in the coming days.














Canada Day Long Weekend

I managed to get an extra day off work and we were able to turn the Canada Day Long Weekend into a four day weekend.  The mountain parks and the lakes are always too busy at this time of year so like in past summers, we headed south towards the badlands.  We left the city on Thursday morning, heading south for the Red Deer River Badlands.  Along the way we stopped for a drink of cold water at the Lowden Lake spring...



We continued south, passing through Drumheller and stopping briefly for fuel.  Showers had moved in by this time and it was starting to rain.  So, we kept moving south and east, eventually ending up along the Red Deer River just outside of Dinosaur Park.  We shared the small community campsite with one other trailer.  The Cottonwoods had gone to seed, and Margarit struggled with her allergies.  To make matters worse, the mosquitos were voracious...

That night and the next morning we wandered around a bit.  I photographed some of the majestic Cottonwoods in the area with my big camera. We also found some diamond willow growing along the banks of the river, and I made some walking sticks for the girls.  As we returned back to our trailer after photographing some of the trees, we were startled by a loud buzzing sound coming from the Texas gate we were stepping over.  To our surprise there was a good sized Prairie Rattlesnake coiled up in the corner, and the girls thought he was pretty cool!


The next day we headed further south and east, with a pit stop in Medicine Hat for more fuel and a few supplies.  Turns out we had forgotten dish soap, dog food, and a few other things.  After stocking up we headed south to Red Rock Coulee.  There were a number of other hikers and photographers around during the day, but by evening we had the place to ourselves.  This is such a wonderful place to be out in as the sun sets over the prairie.  The badlands were more green and lush than I have seen them in decades with sweet clover and green grass all over the place.  The Gumbo Evening Primroses, among other wildflowers, were in bloom.



We all hiked down the coulee into some of the areas of badlands exposure.  This is well below the big spheroid concretions up near the parking area.  Once again I took some photographs with my big camera and the girls and I enjoyed the day exploring.  We found some wildflowers, some cool rocks, took some photographs, and found a couple of shell impressions to boot.

By Saturday afternoon we packed up and wanted to make it part way back home.  It is just too far to drive from Red Rock Coulee all the way back home in one day, with three little girls.  So we split the trip in half and headed back towards the Drumheller area.  We stopped in Dorothy, and once again had the campsite to ourselves.  The ghost town used to be a lot more photographically interesting.  Now it has become too popular, and the two old churches are almost completely restored.  The old United Church, where I proposed to Margarit over a decade ago, was in ruin at that time, and is now completely restored.  The Catholic Church is nearly completed now too.
On Sunday afternoon, as we were packing up to head for home, we could see a large thunderstorm building in the west.  As we put the last of our gear in the trailer and hit the road, it was still sunny, and +31C.  As we drove towards Drumheller we were hit by strong winds, a wall of dust, and eventually heavy rain.  By the time we drove up out of the valley, north of Drumheller, about a half hour later, the temperature had dropped to +13C.  What a difference...!!   We dropped our trailer off out at my brothers cabin at Pigeon Lake and headed for home with just the truck.  The girls were planning to spend the week out at the lake with my brother, and their cousins and would head back out there on their own the next day.  I of course had to return to work!!




Sunday, July 10, 2011

Summer Hockey Playoffs

The Ice Kings were eliminated from summer playoffs as the result of playing a suspended player.  The cut is now down to six teams, and the Renegades are struggling to stay alive.  We played the Mighty Peking Ducks on Friday night and were beaten soundly by a much younger, faster team.  The final score was 9-4.  We had a pretty short bench, only 12 players, and I didn't play due to a sprained knee.  We now drop down to the loser pool of the "double knockout round robin".  We need to win on Tuesday July 12th against Papa Johns Pizza to stay alive.  My knee is feeling better so I hope to be able to play.  If we can win that one we will live to play again later in the week.

Wednesday, July 6, 2011

Summer Hockey - Games 14, 15 & Playoffs

Wow, things have been busy and I haven't had a chance to catch up.  The Renegades played several hockey games over the last little while, and we are now into summer playoffs.  We played the Henchmen for our 14th game of the regular season back in late June and managed a 6-6 tie.  Then we played the last place Green Hornets on Monday, in a game that had no impact in the standings, and got blown out 8-2.  We managed to pull things together tonight for our first game of the summer playoffs.  We played the Ice Kings at Millwoods Arena.  These guys beat us soundly earlier in the season by a score of 7-2.  This time around we were the dominant team.  We were up 3-0 early in the game, including 2 short-handed goals scored on the same 2 minute minor.  We went on to defeat the Ice Kings by a score of 6-3.  Normally the playoffs follow a double knockout format but this time around the Ice Kings may be eliminated early as they played a suspended player during our game.  We are waiting for a final verdict from the league.