Winter Hockey - Game Eight

Yet another loss....   The Renegades played a game on Friday October 28th against a new team, The Red Seals.  Although we held our own, starting the third period tied 4-4, we gave up three goals in the final frame and fell to defeat by a score of 7-4.  Following the recent divisional moves this puts us in last place in our new division.  We have to try and turn this around and get back on track.  Our next game is another late one, on Wednesday next week.

October Day Trip

To my surprise I didn't wake up today until nearly noon.  I guess the last couple of very busy weeks, and continuous late nights finally caught up to me.  When I finally got mobile I noticed that it was a clear crisp fall day with bright blue skies.  So, I decided to head out for a day trip with my daughter Hailey.  With such a late start we didn't have time to go too far so once again we set out for Elk Island National Park east of the city.  The light was beautiful and clear but the west wind was brisk and cold.  We checked out several bison herds that were congregating in various parts of the park.  We stopped a couple of times to make photographs with the view camera.  This was mostly of some aspen trunks at a couple of familiar locations.  All of the attached  images, even the black and white ones, were taken with my little point-and-shoot digital camera.  Hopefully some of the more serious work that I attempted with my 4x5 yields some printable negatives.  A bit of a challenge to say the least, considering the wind that was whipping everything around. We also checked out a few old buildings on the east side of the park as we made our way back home.  It was fun spending some one on one time with my daughter.  As I watched her taking photographs with her little digital camera I marveled at how she is starting to develop an eye for composition.  She was directing me where to stop the truck so that she could get the best angles on the herds of bison.  We had a great afternoon together listening to the radio, visiting and taking pictures.  Eventually as the sun began to settle in the west we made our way back home to go out for pizza with the other three girls.

Winter Hockey - Game 7

The Renegades played a game on Thursday evening, a somewhat late one, at 10:15PM, verses the Klondike Maulers.  We found ourselves behind quickly, and at one point in the third period we were down by a score of 6-2.  Eventually we battled back and by the last few minutes we were within a goal, down by a score of 7-6.  We pulled our goaltender and put the pressure on, trying to even things up.  After a couple of near misses the Maulers finally slid in an empty netter and went on to an 8-6 victory. 

Polaroid Scans from Southern Alberta

When I got home from the prospecting trip on Monday evening, I processed the Polaroid 55 negatives that I shot.  Of the three that I made, only two turned out.  The film is now cleared, washed and dried and I'm able to scan them.  Both of these images were taken at the old abandoned farm yard that Louis and I explored while the other guys were fossil hunting at White Rock Coulee.

Winter Hockey - Game 6

The Renegades played a game on Friday evening, while I was away in southern Alberta.  The guys went down to defeat at the hands of the Wolf Pack.  All in all, it didn't really matter...  We ended up being moved up into Division Eleven, with the point standings of all teams reset at Zero as we continue into the rest of the season.  It remains to be seen whether or not we can remain competitive against the teams now assigned to this slightly higher division.

Prospecting Trip

Quite a number of times over the past decade... and more... my friend and business partner Frank and I, along with various friends and relatives, have taken a trip out to southeastern Alberta to prospect for Dinosaur fossils.  Most years we have ended up out in the badlands of either the Red Deer River or the South Saskatchewan River.  The past couple of years we just couldn't "get around to it..." so the trip didn't happen.  This year we were determined to get out again, and to continue the tradition in the years to come.

I booked the Friday and the Monday off from work to make the weekend worthwhile, particularly in light of the driving distances involved.  I left home early on the morning of October 14th.  The trip almost didn't materialize for me...   My wife and three daughters were leaving the next morning, to fly down to California to visit her sister.  After I was already out the door she realized that some of the paperwork necessary for her to leave the country with our daughters, which I needed to sign, had not been organized.  Eventually after much stress and chaos, we got everything together, found a way to get the document notarized, and I was on my way.  I was traveling with my friend Louis, a relative of Frank's.  Louis is an avid photographer, though he lives on the "other" side and does not shoot film, preferring the digital realm.  We were both more interested in making photographs, than looking for fossils....

After a couple hours of driving we came upon an old farm yard that looked interesting.  We turned off Highway 12 to check it out.  Turned out that the house was nothing special, but there were a couple of really cool old cars in the yard...

 

A little while later we turned south onto Highway 41.  We came upon the turnoff to the Mud Buttes.  I had driven past this area a number of times in the past, but was always in a hurry to get somewhere and always had my trailer in tow.  This trip we had plenty of time, so we decided to check them out.  Up on a high rise, overlooking the surrounding prairie, we found a fairly extensive area of badlands exposure.  We spent a couple of hours hiking around and photographing, sharing the afternoon with a group of school kids out on a field trip.

We eventually hit the road again, but not before a cell phone call from my lawyer, who needed to speak to me before completing the paperwork necessary for Margarit and the girls to leave the country the next morning.   What a relief it was to get that overwith and know that I could continue on to southern Alberta, without the possibility of having to make a quick trip back home. Later that afternoon Louis and I rolled into the Sandy Point campsite on the South Saskatchewan River.  My friends Frank and Jim had arrived there the evening before and set up camp.  The two of them... avid fossil hunters... were out prospecting when Louis and I arrived.  We pitched our tents in the campsite and settled down for the evening.  This was quite a switch for me as for the past decade I always traveled with my trailer, and prior to that, with my pickup camper.  But, I had just bought a tent, a winter sleeping bag, and was decent air mattress and was determined to give it a go.  Good thing that sleeping bag was a warm one... for despite the fact that the days were mostly sunny, with a light breeze, and high temperatures in the range of +10C to +14C, the nights were quite cold, with the temperature dropping off to several degrees below freezing.

That night we stayed up really late, trying to keep warm around the fire, and trying to put a dent into the beer supply that we had brought to the site.  We did a pretty good job, and ended up sleeping in a bit.   After a breakfast of sausage and eggs, we headed out to the badlands about 30 miles to the southwest.  Frank and Jim were interested in prospecting for fossils, while Louis and I were interested in both the fossils, and the photographic opportunities at hand.  The area is very remote, and we drove for many miles on gravel roads, that eventually became rough roads out to well sites, and eventually just tire tracks across the pasture to the edge of the valley.  We spent the entire day hiking and prospecting and had the area completely to ourselves...  Initially I hiked around for a while, and found a shattered Albertosaurus tooth [note the serrations visible on the tip] and various other bones and fossils, including part of a very small ornithamimed claw.  But eventually the fossil prospecting was forgotten, and I focused my attention on making photographs.

As evening came upon us we left the badlands and headed in the general direction of camp.  We came upon an abandoned farm yard that we just had to stop and check out.  The light was phenomenal and we wandered about checking out the old buildings.  We quickly discovered that the old buildings were inhabited by a pair of Great Horned Owls.  We spent some time there making photographs as the light faded into night.  We then hit the road back to the campsite to make dinner, start a fire and continue with our task of consuming the supply of beer that had come with us.

It was a cold and frosty morning and Louis and I wandered around the campsite before eventually rousing Frank and Jim from their beer-induced sleep.   We threw together another hearty breakfast before setting out for the day.

 

Louis and I dropped off Frank and Jim at White Rock Coulee, a Provincial Natural Area, and headed back to the old farm yard that we had found the evening before.  We spent a good part of the afternoon there making more photographs of the old buildings.  

Later we headed back out to the badlands and spent a couple hours photographing in the evening light before eventually meeting up with Frank and Jim and heading back to the campsite for the night.

By this time we had run out of beer.  So, we made a side trip over to Burstall, Saskatchewan to stock up.  Eventually we ended up back at our camp once again and spent another evening around the fire, keeping warm, eating our evening meal, and working on the replenished beer supply.  Once again, the next morning I was up early and spent some time walking along the river and in the campsite, while the others slept in.

Eventually the guys woke up and we had our last breakfast together.  We planned on getting out hiking in the badlands one last time before we had to pack up and head for home.  Frank and Jim headed out to the badlands while Louis and I took down our tents and packed up our gear.  Eventually we headed out to meet up with Frank and Jim.  But, we quickly became distracted when we came across a couple of massive fields of sunflowers.  We were so blown away by the photographic compositions that we were presented with, and this graphic subject matter, that we ended up spending a couple of hours there.  By the time we finally packed up our cameras, it was too late to bother trying to meet up with Frank and Jim.  So, we just pointed the truck north and started in the general direction of home.

All the way home we kept searching for opportunities to get out with our cameras.  We checked out an alkali slough near Czar and an old farm house near Hardisty.  As the sun was setting we stopped at the Ribstones near Viking.  Just as the last glimmer of twilight was in the sky we came across a couple of combines completing the last of the harvest.  From then on it was just another hour of pounding the pavement back into the city to eventually find our way home.  It was sure nice to unpack, settle down, have a shower, and sleep in a real bed...

Thanksgiving Weekend

I decided to pack up our trailer for the season a couple weeks ago, and reluctantly gave up on any further camping trips this year.  Perhaps in consolation, and somewhat on a whim, I booked a two-bedroom cabin at Castle Mountain for the Thanksgiving long weekend.  I booked off work a little early on Friday, and right after the girls got out of school, we hit the road.  It was getting dark as we bypassed Calgary and headed west on the Trans Canada for Banff.  By the time we got to the Canmore area, we ran into some light showers.  A quick stop for some take out food and we were on our way again.  We arrived at Castle Mountain around 9:00PM.  We eventually got the girls settled down to bed, despite all the excitement.  The next morning, after sleeping in a bit and some breakfast, we headed out on a day trip.  After a couple of stops at Baker Creek and along the Bow Valley Parkway we eventually decided to cross over the divide into British Columbia and see if the Yoho Valley Road was still open for the season.  We were pleased to find that it was, so we made the drive up the valley to Takkawkaw falls.  We wandered around there for a while, and stopped briefly along the Kicking Horse River before eventually heading back to Banff.  Back in Banff we wandered along Main Street back in town for a while and eventually went out for dinner.

The next morning was Thanksgiving Sunday.  We slept in... eventually getting up to make a big breakfast of bacon and eggs.  We had already decided that this day was going to be spent hanging around our rented cabin.  Hailey and I wandered down to the Bow River in the afternoon so that I could take some photographs of Castle Mountain with my view camera.  The cabins are situated mere yards from the CPR main line and we quickly remembered that freight trains rumble by about every half hour, all day and all night.  Eventually we became immune to the train whistles and the clatter of freight cars.  The girls thought it was great, and were excited to put out coins on the tracks to be flattened by the train wheels.  They never had to wait for long for a trail to roll by and the opportunity to go and retrieve their treasures.

We brought along a turkey and all the fixings for a big Thanksgiving feast.  We enjoyed the evening in our cabin together before eventually turning in, very full and content.  The next morning we had to pack up for that dreaded trip home.  The girls hoped to make one last visit to the resort hot tub only to find, to their dismay, that it was closed for weekly cleaning.  But they were in and out of it a number of times the day before so probably had their fill.  After packing up and checking out we hit the road, in the general direction of home.  This time we did not return the way that we had come.  Rather we headed north up the Icefields Parkway to Saskatchewan Crossing, and then east on the David Thompson Highway to Rocky Mountain House.  The weather had been cool but sunny for most of the weekend but this day was more overcast, with little spits of rain.  We stopped briefly at Bow Lake so that I could make a couple photographs with my view camera.  There was a brisk wind and the temperature was only up to about +4C, so we didn't stay that long.  We continued on up the parkway, passing by Waterfowl Lakes, and reminisced about the four days we had spent there in August.  Shortly after leaving Banff National Park we came upon a big Grizzly Bear on the side of the road.  She was fattening up on greens before the long nap to come.  We spent quite a while watching her and taking photographs from the truck as she seemed content to wander along and keep eating.  We made a couple of brief stops for breaks and to photograph the fall colors before eventually taking the side road up to Crescent Falls on the Bighorn River.  The girls really enjoyed this stop and had a lot of fun playing along the riverbank and collecting rocks.  As we left the high country and traveled east into the front ranges, the skies cleared and the temperature rose up into double digits.  By this time is was about 4:30PM and we still had a long drive back home.  We reluctantly piled back into the truck and hit the road.  A brief stop for something to eat in Rocky Mountain House and we carried on, eventually rolling in back home shortly before 9:00PM.  A very busy but enjoyable long weekend!

Winter Hockey - Game 5

I was away with my family for the Thanksgiving Long Weekend and missed Game 5 of the Renegades Winter Season.  I fail to understand why the league insists on scheduling games on holidays.  All in the name of greed I suppose.  I felt it was much more important to spend the holiday with my girls so I passed on playing hockey this weekend.  Our game was scheduled at 8:00PM on Thanksgiving Sunday and needless to say the turnout was light.  Despite the very short bench, the guys managed to tough win over the Chiefs by a score of 5-4.

Oops...

I missed posting this shot from my day trip out to Elk Island National Park in late September.....

Autumn Weekend

It was a rather subdued weekend.  The weather was cooler, and partly overcast and we had a few showers.  The fall colors are upon us, and the leaves are beginning to fall.  I was rather depressed as I winterized my trailer and put it away for the season.  Although we will be out on some day trips and away for a couple of weekends, we will not be using the trailer any more this season.  Despite the fact that I didn't take any vacation time this summer, we still went out with the trailer for a dozen weekend trips.  All of our friends tell us that they don't know of anyone that gets more use out of an RV.

Saturday night I had my hockey game.  Then on Sunday I went to visit my friend Jon.  Jon was diagosed with primary liver cancer several years ago.  He had a large tumor removed a couple years back.  On September 22nd got a call informing him that a matching donor liver was available and that he would be given a transplant.  That's like winning the lottery!  He was discharged and went home at the end of September.  He is recovering nicely but still very much in pain and feeling lousy.  But, he tells me that every day he feels just a little better.  It will be great to see him up and around again in the coming weeks.

Winter Hockey - Game 4

The Renegades played a game on Saturday night against the Oil City Wings.  These guys used to be a very competitive team but seem to have fallen on hard times this season.  They were winless in three starts coming into this game, and we handed them their fourth defeat.  They played with a bit of a short bench but are basically the same team that we played in years past.  The game ended with a Renegades victory and a score of 8-2.