We just returned from a very relaxing and enjoyable camping weekend. We met up with my cousin Vic and his family, out by the Blackstone River, along the Forestry Trunk Road. This has been a favorite camping spot of ours for some time now. The area was obviously heavily flooded earlier this summer when the eastern slopes of the Rockies experienced very heavy rain and significant snowmelt and runoff. This all contributed to the severe flooding that was experienced in Calgary, Canmore, High River and other locations to the south and east. It seems this area suffered the same fate, but to a lesser degree. The nice grassy clearing that we usually camped in had turned to big mud hole, and there was dirt and debris all over the place. This composite photo gives a little bit of an idea what things were like.
We set up camp and made the best of it. It turned out to be one of the most relaxing and enjoyable weekends that I have had in a long time. Mostly my cousin Vic and I just sat around and visited. We had a lot to catch up on. We had spent a lot of time together when we were young, but after we both got married and had families we sort of drifted apart and lost touch. Mostly we just lounged around the campsite, made a fire, had a BBQ, and did a little fishing. Our wives were out hiking and collecting rocks along the river. My three girls made friends with their second cousin Ceyanna and the girls seemed to really get along well. At one point I gave Vic's wife Susanne a crash course in photography and we experimented taking macro photographs of all the Longhorn Beetles that were flying around the area.
After a big breakfast on Sunday, and some more visiting we eventually had to wrap things up and get ready to head for home. Vic and his family were heading back to their place in Innisfail and of course we had a little longer drive back to Edmonton. As we were packing up a thunderstorm rolled into the area and there was quite a bit of lightning and it was staring to rain. By the time we really got going the rain became fairly heavy and the road got quite muddy. The storm was pretty severe and by the time we got back to Nordegg the temperature had dropped from 26 degrees that we experienced earlier in the afternoon, to 11C. The storm would end up crossing paths with us four times that day. As we drove east from Nordegg to Rocky Mountain House we could see the dark clouds, heavy rain and lightning to the north. When we turned north at Rocky Mountain House we drove right back into the path of that storm for a second time. There was very heavy rain, a little hail and lots of lightning. At some points it was so heavy that we had to slow right down to 40 or 50km/h and the windshield wipers of the truck couldn't keep up. I managed to get this shot of some lightning, out the front windshield of the truck.
We ended up eventually passing through the storm, which was tracking off to the northeast. But, when we got to Alder Flats, and turned east onto Highway 13, we drove right into the path of the storm for the third time. There was more of the same... heavy rain, lightning and some hail. Once again we passed through the storm and eventually drove out from under the clouds. The sky was very ominous and had a very eerie feel to it as we outran the storm and ended up driving out in front of it.
Once we got to Pigeon Lake we had left the storm behind and conditions were generally pretty dry. At Highway 2 we turned north towards Edmonton and could see the storm off in the west, all the way home. Shortly after we arrived home and as we were unpacking the trailer, the storm rolled over us for the fourth time that day. Once again there were heavy downpours of rain and lots of lightning. This time around we were safe and sound at home and just slept through most of it. When I got up to go to work this morning it was very wet and I heard on the radio that several roadway underpasses around the city were flooded. I guess we were a little lucky....
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