This past weekend it was Anna's turn to get out with me for a one on one weekend. With the Eskimos game on Friday night, we weren't able to leave until Saturday morning. That football game was the worst one I have witnessed the Eskimos play since I started buying tickets. They were totally dominated by the last place [in the west] Saskatchewan Roughriders. I guess injuries are starting to catch up with them as they have been in record numbers this year. But, they're going to have to pull it together if they want to make it into the playoffs. Their first place streak of 7-0 is now gone and with two recent losses against western teams they find themselves in third place.
There was a cool looking moth on the door of my truck on Saturday morning as Anna and I prepared to leave for East Coulee. After taking a couple of photos of it, we hit the road. It was a relatively early start, at about 9:30AM, and this put us in the badlands just after lunch. We spotted the trailer in the yard at our shop and got it all set up. After unhooking the truck we prepared to head out for the afternoon. After a brief visit with Frank, who was working at the shop, we hit the road. I wanted to explore an old cemetery in the town of Wayne, but was unable to find it. We drove around for a while and checked out another small cemetery at Dunphy. After checking with my friend Chris we got directions to the one we originally wanted to find, but realized it was a rather strenuous hike up the valley from the town of Wayne. At this point in the afternoon it was already +27C and Anna and I decided against it.
We headed back to camp in the afternoon and did a short evening hike up into the hills near East Coulee. Then we went back to the trailer and prepared our evening meal of Fettucine Alfredo with salad. After supper we relaxed for a while in the heat of the evening and decided to turn in early. We tried to watch a movie on the TV in the trailer but couldn't get it to work.
It is obvious that fall will be soon upon us. Despite the heat of the day it got rather cold overnight. Some of the trees are already showing a tinge of fall color, and the harvest is getting underway.
We got up moderately early on Sunday and after breakfast we got going by about 9:45AM. We wanted to get out to Wayne for the hike up to the cemetery, before it got too hot. It was about +19C when we hit the trail around 10:30, but this day turned out to be even hotter than the day before. By the time we returned to the truck, after our hike, about two hours later, it was already +29C. And, it peaked at about +32C later in the afternoon. Anna overheated a little on the hike to the cemetery but was a good sport about it. There is not much left there... only about 10 or 12 old graves. The site is rather overgrown and totally neglected. Most of the grave markers are gone or deteriorated badly and in a lot of cases only the bases of the markers remain in an overgrown depression. There were four graves left with legible markers and all of these dated to 1918 and 1922... so almost a hundred years old.
After an ice cream break in Rosedale we stopped at some old dead Cottonwoods along Willow Creek. Normally these skeletons stand in a pond of water. But, with the heat and local drought of this summer the pond is gone and the dead trees stand in a bed of cracked mud. We took a photograph here before heading back to East Coulee.
This was the time of day when the temperature peaked at 32. So we packed up the trailer, hooked up the truck and eventually headed for home. I think it was about 4:00PM when we rolled out of East Coulee. We made a fuel and another ice cream stop in Lacombe, and got home by around 7:30PM.
It was a great weekend and I enjoyed the one on one time with Anna. I think she really enjoyed it too!
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