On Thursday October 29th I went in to the shop in the morning. It was my intention just to load up some stuff and hit the road. But, I checked my work e-mail and there was a rush inquiry about a project that I had been involved in a couple of months prior. A large glass skylight seemed to be on the verge of going ahead and they needed some up to date final pricing. So, I spent a couple of hours looking after this before I returned to my personal project.
About a decade ago I purchased an 8x10 enlarger from a professional photographer in Toronto. Including the cost of crating and shipping I paid over $3000 for it. It is very large and I don't really have room in my darkroom at home to set it up. I want to overflow into the storage room outside my darkroom to be able to use it. Of course over the years, with my work schedule, I never had time to undertake the renovation that this would require. So the enlarger stayed in crates, stored in my shop.
Now that I have sold the business I need to get these crates out of the shop. I elected to take them to my shop down in East Coulee and store them there. This time I intend for this to be short term storage. I want to tackle the renovations at home and be able to set this enlarger up by the spring. This will allow me to print my 8"x10" negatives, as well as some 624 panoramas [2-1/4" x 9-1/4"].
By noon I had the three large crates loaded onto my truck with the forklift, strapped them down, and was on the way to East Coulee. I arrived in the late afternoon and used the forklift there to unload them in the shop. It was very chilly that evening and I had to turn up the heater to warm up the shop a little. I grilled some smokies on my BBQ and then spent the night in the East Coulee Hilton.... That's actually our travel trailer that I keep stored in the shop when we aren't using it.
It was kind of cool to be around the shop on Friday, while it was in operation. The employees were there working on a couple of small projects. They are continuing with the coating and painting of the large dinosaur sculpture that they were working on last time Margarit and I were down. They also had the sculpture of "Grouchy" that was being repainted. We also have the skull of a Fin Whale that is being restored. I think that in my retirement I will spend a little more time down here at the shop and help out with some of the cool projects that they work on.
Grouchy was finished, so in the late morning we loaded her up into my truck and I headed over to The Old Grouches Cozy Cafe. This is a small restaurant in Drumheller that is a favorite of many locals. I met Frank there and we re-installed her on her perch out front. Then we stayed for lunch.
After lunch I hit the road and headed off across country to Nordegg. It is actually further from Drumheller to Nordegg than it is from Edmonton. It took about four hours to get there. Hailey was at the cottage when I arrived and we spent a couple of days there. It was quite mild and most of the snow that fell a week ago is now gone. We had a big pasta dinner on Saturday night and watched some movies together. We even watched an old horror movie, Nightmare on Elm Street, during the Blue Moon of Halloween. There were no Trick-or-Treaters around out at Nordegg but I guess back at home in the city the girls had 58 ghosts and goblins come around. This volume was as much or more than past years, somewhat surprising given the Covid situation. But it was good to see that all the little kids are able to experience such a fun day...
By mid afternoon Sunday Hailey and I packed up and headed for home. With the switch back to Standard Time on Sunday morning, it will be getting dark even earlier in the evenings now.
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