Possession of the East Coulee Property

On the weekend of July 5 and 6 I travelled down to East Coulee to officially take possession of the building that I had purchased.  I went by myself because the girls were staying at Pigeon Lake with my brother, and their cousins.  I just parked my trailer in front of the property, and set up there.  The keys were turned over to me, and the property was officially mine.

I spent some time wandering around the building taking a bunch of record photographs.  Then I hiked across the road, up into the hills, and took some photographs that were essentially an overview of the town, with the building visible.  I also used my phone to take a couple of panoramic shots of the townsite.

Here's the truck and trailer in evening light, parked in front of the property

Here's what will become the Fabrication Shop, in the old 1937 section of the building, that once housesd a Texaco Service Station

This is the center bay of the building, which includes an overhead chain hoist, a fune extractor, a ventilation system, and upgraded overhead radiant heaters.

These two shots are the interior of the high bay, at the southeast end of the building.  There is an overhead rolling crane, and a rather elaborate mezzanine.

This boardroom is on the upper level of the high bay.

When I hiked up into the hills to get some overviews of the town and of the building, I came across these lower jaws of a deer, that obviously someone had neatly laid out on a rock.

And, there were quite a few Prickly Pears in bloom...

Here are a couple of shots of the townsite.  The building is clearly visible in the first one.  The second shot is more of an overview, with the building visible near the right edge, and the tipple of the Atlas Coal Mine visible further into the background near the left edge.

These next two shots are panoramic images that were taken with the camera in my cell phone.

Finally some bugs on a concrete retaining wall that I came across as I wandered around town.

I spent a good part of the weekend just wandering around town.  The local residents were all very friendly and I introduced myself to quite a few of them.  I spent Saturday evening down at the East Coulee Hotel and had a few beers there with some of the locals.  The next morning I had coffee with the dentist from Drumheller that lives in the big house across the street from the shop.  The house is a long sprawling bungalow with dark stucco and black shingles.  All the locals refer to it as the funeral home.  It was built by the guy that I bought the building from, but he recently sold it to the dentist.

Portions of my building will be leased to Palcoprep and we will relocate our operations from Drumheller out to East Coulee.  Now that I have possession of the building I can draw up a lease agreement between the two companies and we can look to starting the dreaded job of packing and moving.  Most of the responsibility for this will rest with my business partner Frank.  But I know that I will be back down in town several times over the remainder of the summer as the project progresses.