Margarit and I went out to the cottage on the last weekend of November. We brought no kids, and no pets, so it is was unbelievably quiet and relaxing.
We left the city on Saturday morning about 9:30AM. We stopped at the Antique Store in Rimbey and had a look around. We ended up buying an old wood pitch fork, which we will hang on the wall out at the cottage. As we were rolling west out of Rimbey the thermometer on the truck registered a temperature of -20C.
About an hour later we rolled into Rocky Mountain House. We made a lunch stop at Cucina, one of our favorite restaurants. It is owned by an Asian couple that immigrated to Canada several years ago. The menu is a mix of Korean, Italian, with a little red neck red meat thrown in to appeal to the locals. We haven't managed to stop here all summer as we usually had a vehicle full of pets, or it was way past meal time. This time around it worked and we had a really nice lunch together. After lunch we hit a couple of the Antique Stores in Rocky and Margarit bought a few small items.
Later in the afternoon as we headed west towards Nordegg, it got quite a bit warmer. As we drove up over the ridge at Saunders the truck thermometer registered a temperature of -3C. Obviously there was some warm air pushing over the mountains.
When we got out to the cottage, there was no one around. We took a walk around the subdivision in the afternoon and there were only two other vehicles out at cottages on Tamarack Trail, and only a handful more in the more established section. It was very peaceful and quiet.
Once the fire in the wood stove got going, and the chill was taken out of the cottage, it was really cozy and warm. We couldn't seem to get the stove to draft properly at first and promptly filled the cottage with smoke, setting off the smoke detectors. Eventually we got the fire going and aired out the place. The furnaces didn't even kick in and the fire was all that we needed all weekend. We made an evening meal of homemade pizza and salad and then watched a documentary DVD.
On Sunday it was even warmer. The tempereature got up to about +4C. We had a big breakfast together and then relaxed, lazing around the cottage. I put some oats out for the deer and filled up the bird feeder. A Whitetail doe eventually wandered over and had something to eat but mostly it was the squirrel, the magpies and some whiskeyjacks that were gorging themselves. That squirrel was really defensive and kept chasing the magpies away.
By mid afternoon we reluctantly packed up and headed on our way. We decided to take a quick spin up the valley to see if the lake had frozen yet. There was barely a puff of breeze at the cottage and most of the way up the valley it was reasonably calm. Once we got out to the Bighorn River we could see the wind sweeping snow over the peaks of the Bighorn Range. Abraham Lake had a little ice at the east end, but mostly it was still open. At Allstones Creek it was pretty breezy and there were waves on the lake. Once we turned the corner towards Windy Point and the Mt. Michener viewpoint it was a full blown gale. Windy Point lived up to its name once again. It was a challenge to hold the truck doors open and there were large rolling whitecaps on the lake. I took a couple of photographs with my medium format panoramic camera but Margarit had to hold the truck door open beside me to shelter me from the wind so that my tripod didn't blow over. The temperature was +2C, but with the wind, which must have been at least 50kmh, it felt more like -15 or -20C.
After packing up here we headed for home. We saw one solitary wild horse on the drive home, and had seen one herd on the way out. Other than a couple of deer there was not much wildlife out by the highway. We stopped in Rimbey on the way home and had dinner together at a place called James' Bar and Grill. The menu was extensive and the food was homemade and really hearty. A place we will definitely consider stopping at again.
The three girls survived the weekend at home in our absence. They did not accomplish much in the way of chores and housecleaning and didn't even live up to our low expectations. But all in all the weekend went pretty well and hopefully Margarit and I can head out together again sometime soon.
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