East Coulee

The girls and I headed down to East Coulee on July 17th, which also happened to be our daughter Helena's 14th birthday.  In typical teenage fashion she was not particularly impressed with having to hang around with her parents on her birthday.

Margarit and I headed down together in the afternoon.  We took a bit of a round about route as I wanted to drop a print off for a landowner.  We arrived at the shop in East Coulee in the later afternoon and off loaded all of our stuff.  Some of it went into the trailer, which is set up out in the yard, and part of it went into the big fridge in the shop.  Annelise decided to stay home in the city by herself, which simplified things a little as she could look after all the pets.  Hailey and Helena drove down separately, a little later in the evening.

Drumheller is typically one of the warmest and driest parts of the province.  The Monday morning after we arrived the clouds rolled in and it cooled off an started to rain.  It rained all day long and it was pretty much a write off.  Much of the rest of central and western Alberta had a great day with clear skies and warm conditions, so we kind of wondered why we had come...?  We hung around the shop for a while and then later in the day we headed into town for a bit.  We tried to check out some of the galleries and shops but many of them are closed on Mondays.  We had lunch at a local pizza place called Pizza 249.  I had been here over 20 years ago and remembered that the pizza was really good.  I'm not sure why I never made a return visit until now.  The place looks exactly the same as it did 20 years ago.  Its still a little grungy and beaten up and looks as though its seen better days.  But the pizza did not disappoint and it was very good.  Even my fussy girls were impressed so we will no doubt return again next time we're down for a visit.

By Monday evening the clouds began to break up and the rain stopped.  There was a fantastic rainbow over East Coulee that was brighter than anything I've seen in many years.  We went out for a short evening walk and battled the hordes of mosquitoes while enjoying the evening light and the rainbow.