Vacation Week

I booked my third week of vacation for the week of August 17 to 21.  I'm supposed to get six weeks of vacation this year, but the last three will be pro-rated due to my work week being reduced to four days, and perhaps less.  I've never had this much time off through my entire 40 year working career and I'm really enjoying it.  This should have me well prepared for full retirement at the end of the year.  

I headed out to Nordegg on Saturday, leaving the city about lunch time.  The girls were not joining me for the first part of the week off.  I had a pretty leisurely drive out and stopped a few places along the way to make photographs with my view camera.  An old theatre in Thorsby, and abandoned gas station in Sunnybrook, and a collapsed barn north or Rocky Mountain House.  I arrived at the cottage in the late afternoon.  This time with the weather being so sunny and hot, I had brought along our new loveseat.  I checked in advance to make sure that my neighbor would be out to give me a hand to carry it off the truck and into the cottage.  My neighbor Rob was over within minutes of my arrival and helped me with it.  It is just fantastic to have such wonderful neighbors.  I'm happy to return the favor any time, which I why I did the wedding photos of their daughter a few weeks back.  Later that evening I visited around the campfire with Rob and Brenda and stayed up way too late, and drank too much beer.  Typical for Nordegg and the next morning the infamous Nordegg Headache paid yet another visit.

On Sunday I spent the better part of the afternoon splitting firewood.  We still have two large piles of cut logs that date back to when our lot was cleared about three years ago.  Some of the stuff from the bottom of the piles is getting a little rotten and will have to be reserved for the outside fire pit.  But, knowing from experience how much wood we can burn in the winter, I am splitting and piling as much of it as I can.  The temperature peaked at 32C, the hottest day of the year so far.  I had to take a few breaks and cool off to avoid sunstroke.  I was sure exhausted by evening and feel asleep after a late dinner, trying to watch a move.  Monday was still warm, but it was mostly overcast and quite a bit cooler.  I spent most of the day splitting logs again.  I've now worked through more than half of the big pile behind our garage.  A thunderstorm rolled through in the afternoon and it cooled off dramatically as we got about 3mm of rain.  It was a relatively tame storm with only a little thunder and lightning, but no hail or heavy winds.  Within an hour or so it had passed and soon the sun was out again.  The storm forced a beer break but as soon as it passed I went back to work.

I had some leftover mexican food from the night before and then when out for an evening ATV ride.  When I crossed Shunda Creek at about 8:30 I noticed that the fish were rising all over the place.  I rushed back home and got my fly rod and managed to fish for about 20 minutes until the sun went down.  My fly got hit about six or seven times and I actually landed three brook trout,  Two were just tiny minnows about four inches long, which I promptly threw back.  The first one I caught was a nice size at about nine inches long.  When I got back to the cottage there were two white tail bucks in the woods behind.  They have been regular visitors but are now sporting full racks and have lost their velvet.  As I sit in the window typing this I am watching them in the fading light of evening.  Three does wandered over and joined them as it settled into night.  Sure love this place and will enjoy spending a bunch of my retirement days here.