October Day Trip

This past week has been really busy....  On Thursday evening Margarit and I went downtown to the Winspear Center to see a show by The Mavericks.  The sound in that building is exceptional as it was designed for the symphony.  The seats are comfortable and well spaced and it was a great experience.  The Mavericks are a rather eclectic band, starting out in the 1980's as a country band.  Later, the latin infleunces of the leader Raul Malo's Cuban background came out and their style changed.  They had the mostly older crowd up on their feet for most of the show.

On Friday it was back to the rink to play a hockey game with the Renegades.  We were pretty rusty and the Trojans took it to us early on.  We quickly found ourselves down 5-1...  We rallied in the third period and made it a little closer at 5-3, but an empty net goal sealed the score at 6-3 and secured a loss for my team.  All this despite out-shooting our opponents 30-22.  We had a lay off of about 10 days between our sixth and seventh games of the season.  That seventh game was on Sunday morning last weekend, while I was down in East Coulee.  Our backup goaltender didn't show up for the early morning ice slot and the team was forced to forfeit the game.  As a result none of our guys have been on the ice for almost two weeks... and it showed.  Hopefully we've blown the rust off and can do a little better in our next two games coming up on the 25th and 29th.

On Saturday, with great weather in the forecast, I set out on a day trip.  My friend Nigel from the Monochrome Guild decided to join me.  We left the city moderately early, at about 9:00AM.  We headed west to an abandoned industrial site.  I understand that this was once a cement plant, mining limestone from a nearby deposit.  It has obviously been inactive for quite some time.  The local grafitti artists have found it and use it as a canvas for their art... so to speak...

I've been out to this site a couple of times in the past and knew what to expect.  But, in the past it had been just a quick stop on the way home from other locations.  This time around it was my destination and I had made plans to spend as much time as I needed to visually document the place.

It was sunny and pleasant and the low autumn light at this time of year is spectacular for photography.  The temperature peaked at about 10C.  We spent the better part of the day here at the site making photographs.  It was also a great opportunity for Nigel and I to visit, during the drive out to and back from our destination.  Nigel is new to the Monochrome Guild and he and I have not had much of an opportunity to connect before this.  After a brief lunch stop we continued on to a second destination for further visual exploration.  That will be touched upon in a later blog post...