Wednesday, September 28, 2005
Call for the Haz-Mat Team! (Photo Special)
Today's been a bit of a disaster so far, in terms of getting things done. I was up at 07:00 or so and spent the morning working at my desk at home, sorting out a few papers and compiling a list of rental agencies for another NI surgeon who is visiting Calgary for a few months next year. I had my Masters in Medical Education class at 12:30pm, so I drove in to get to the Health Sciences Centre a bit early so I could pop into the Library first. However, as soon as I got there the fire alarms started to go off and the whole building was evacuated. My class was supposed to run for 3 hours solid, until 3:30pm, so I thought "no big deal, it'll be 15 minutes until they find the toaster that's been left on or discover the false alarm like usual". I went and got some lunch and called back at 12:45pm but the place was still shut and there was a massive crowd of students and staff milling around outside. And it was still shut at 1pm and 1:30pm. By 2pm they had moved everyone back to safe distance and sealed the area off with yellow tape! It seems that someone had spilled some acid in one of the labs in the basement, so the fire and Haz-Mat teams had turned up and roped the whole place off. It's 4:45pm now and it's still sealed off! Plus, the traffic around the hospital has been snarled up all afternoon because they sealed off part of the road outside the building where all the buses come through! Anyway, hopefully the car park will be available shortly, as I'm leaving at 5:40 or so to go to my first skating class of the winter. I'm planning on falling over a lot, as I haven't been on skates for 6 months or so, but I should get the hang of it again fairly quick.
In other news, Dr Robson's Fantasy Footie side, Bow Valley Wanderers have been tearing their way up the chart and are now ahead of Athletica Athabasca, Milebush United and the Head-Smashed-In Buffaloes! Only Chalkie's All-Stars to beat before P is Queen of the Losers!
Before I go, here are some miscellaneous photos we've been meaning to put on the blog:
Who is that mysterious stranger?
This is what half a pig looks like
Home-made oatmeal biccies
This is what half a pig and a whole lamb look like stuffed into our freezer!
As you can see, we're busy stockpiling meat for the winter - it's gonna be a long one, or so they say! $200 for the lamb and $240 for the piggy!
J
(0) comments
In other news, Dr Robson's Fantasy Footie side, Bow Valley Wanderers have been tearing their way up the chart and are now ahead of Athletica Athabasca, Milebush United and the Head-Smashed-In Buffaloes! Only Chalkie's All-Stars to beat before P is Queen of the Losers!
Before I go, here are some miscellaneous photos we've been meaning to put on the blog:
Who is that mysterious stranger?
This is what half a pig looks like
Home-made oatmeal biccies
This is what half a pig and a whole lamb look like stuffed into our freezer!
As you can see, we're busy stockpiling meat for the winter - it's gonna be a long one, or so they say! $200 for the lamb and $240 for the piggy!
J
Tuesday, September 27, 2005
weird weather (just for a change!)
Very very brief blog before going to work this morning...
21 degrees C was our lovely high temperature yesterday - sunny skies, beautful autumn colours etc
Tomorrow, our forecast high is 19 degrees C with sunny skies, autumn colours etc
This is what we woke up to this morning out the front of the house...
And just to be sure, this is what we have at the back...
Anyway, its only a dusting of horrible wet snow, roads are fine and its not going to snow again for a little while (we hope!).
More soon....
(0) comments
21 degrees C was our lovely high temperature yesterday - sunny skies, beautful autumn colours etc
Tomorrow, our forecast high is 19 degrees C with sunny skies, autumn colours etc
This is what we woke up to this morning out the front of the house...
And just to be sure, this is what we have at the back...
Anyway, its only a dusting of horrible wet snow, roads are fine and its not going to snow again for a little while (we hope!).
More soon....
Monday, September 26, 2005
Labour Day in Waterton ("You are Now Entering the US of A")
This is our slighty-delayed account of the Labour Day weekend we spent in Waterton. As regular readers will know, we were thinking of heading up north to Peace River, or maybe going up to Jasper again or taking a cabin in B.C. but in the end we decided to head right into the very south-western corner of our wee province and see what Waterton National Park had to offer. We left on Saturday morning for the three-hour drive down on Highway 22, past Bragg Creek, Millarville, Longview, the Bar-U Historic Ranch and coming at last to Pincher Creek and then finally to the Waterton townsite itself. The National Park occupies much of the lower-left corner of the provincial map, and is jointly run between the US and Canada with Glacier National Park which is much bigger and occupies much of northern Montana.
(The US is in yellow and Canada is at the top in orange)
The bigger version of the map is here
We got a good day for our long drive down and we stopped briefly for a picnic lunch at the Chain Lakes Provincial Park on highway 22.
Just south of there, we noticed that all the fence posts on the western side of the road were decorated with colourful farmers hats and the odd shoe nailed on the top of each post. This went on for more than half a mile and we stopped to take some pictues:
Why do they do this?
And where do they get all the hats from?
Pincher Creek is recognised as the windiest spot in all of Alberta and is home to almost 150 giant wind turbines which generate enough power for 35,000 homes. It's weird to come over a rise and see so many windmills stretching as far as the eye can see! And there are more planned for the same area!
Wind turbine at Pincher Creek
Pincher Creek is also home to Cowboy Cut-Outs! As you drive along, you will see little scenes set up in the fields by the road, featuring cowboys, indians, cattle, tee-pees and various other things from Alberta's cowboy past, all made up of black metal cut-outs. It's nice, but it's a little odd:
Cut-Out Cattle
The road that leads to Waterton Park and at the Waterton townsite itself is quite spectacular, as it skirts the western edge of the prairies in one of the few areas where the mountains meet the plains. Everywhere else along the Rockies there is a gradual transition between the two in the form of the Foothills or the boreal forest, but here the mountains just rise up all of a sudden from the flat plains!
There are 3 lakes in Waterton (Lower, Middle and Upper) and the townsite is right at the junction of the Upper and Middle lakes. The Prince of Wales Hotel (a 1920s-built, US-owned, very old-fashioned and very expensive hotel) is seven stories high and sits on a bluff overlooking the town with an amazing view of the Upper Lake, where you can see right down into Montana:
Prince of Wales Hotel
Upper Waterton Lake
To give you an idea of how close the US is, here's the same photo with the border drawn on it:
As you can see, Waterton townsite is at one end of the Upper Lake, the border is about halfway along the length of the lake and the tiny settlement of Goat Haunt is in Montana at the other, US end of the Lake.
We were staying at the Glacier Suites Hotel in the townsite and had a loft apartment with a king-size bed and a jacuzzi tub in the living room!
The Glacier Suites
Heart-Shaped Love Tub!
Our friends told us that Waterton is a bit like what Banff used to be like in the 1950s - in a lovely part of the country with lakes, forest wildlife and mountains but still fairly undeveloped, with only a few small hotels and restaurants. It has stayed fairly small because it's so remote from the rest of the province and because the train line never came here. It's got a kind of holiday feel, and the streets are full of 'surreys' (same as 'the surrey with the fringe on top'!) being pedalled around the town. It's also got a great view of Montana's mountains behind the lake:
Montana Sunset
And there seem to be lots of Mormons about the place, and deer roaming around the streets.
Deer at the Mormon church
We spent the rest of Saturday exploring the town and had home-made pizza at Pizza of Waterton, and on Sunday we set out to hike across the US border into Montana. The signs said it was only 7km (about 4 miles), so we figured it should only take us 1-2 hours to get to the border. It was very steep in places however, and we made slow going, taking almost 3 hours to reach Boundary Bay. The path weaves its way in and out of the forest and for a long stretch it goes right through prime bear territory. While we were walking through a section of the path where the forest was carpeted with the berries that bears go for, we were constantly sure that there was a grizzly having a snack around the next corner!
In the Chute! ("are you sure this is the right way?")
Bertha Bay (halfway there)
Waves on the Lake
Sun on the Rocks
The border is in the middle of nowhere, just a clearing in the forest which leads down to the lake. There's a little campsite and a biffy there, and the border is marked by a 10-foot wide clear-cut zone which leads right up the mountains on each side of the lake, so it's really clear where the border is. There's no border or customs post, no US or Canadian staff at all, just the border, the lake and the wind.
"Have you been to the toilet?" The last biffy in Canada!
The US-Canada Border
The Boundary
We slipped quietly across the border, entering the US illegally and walked for another 15 minutes or so before sitting down to have some lunch. Having penetrated Homeland Security's defences so easily, we decided to quite while we were ahead and slipped back into Canada. It took us another 2.5 hours of slogging to get back to Waterton, and we only came across a handful of people on the path - there really aren't that many people in Alberta, even on the Sunday before Labour Day!
Canada Rocks!
On the way home on Labour Day, we stopped at a few places in Waterton National Park:
Red Rock Canyon
P at Cameron Lake
We also stopped at a bison paddock which was supposed to be full of buffalo, but there were none to be seen. Maybe they were just shy...
WARNING: Bison may attack you...
We headed back up to Pincher Creek and went west up to Crowsnest Pass which is where the road penetrates the Rockies and goes over the border into B.C.
The road goes right through the Frank Slide, which is where a mountain side collapsed on a small mining village about 100 years ago. The village is gone, but the Slide is still there, huge boulders piled up on each side of the road. It's really impressive and it makes up think what it must have been like to be there when it all came down...
The Frank Slide
We drove on through the Pass until we were over into BC. It seems similar to Alberta, but the biffies are definitely different! We didn't realise that when people are crossing the border back into their home province they seem to get a bit excited and honk the horn, wave their arms, etc. So when we crossed back into AB, we had to do the same! (Well, we didn't want to seem disloyal...)
Welcome to Bee Cee!
First biffy in Bee Cee!
To end our journey, we turned north in the Pass and headed home on the Forestry Trunk Road. This is a gravel road where you can't go faster than 60 or 70 kph unless you want to go off the side! It winds all the way north from Waterton to Jasper, becoming highway 40 in Kananaskis for a while south of the Trans-Canada. And it take you up through some really deep forest, hundreds of miles from the nearest town. There's no mobile phone signal there and there's very little traffic on the road, so we made sure we had enough supplies in the Jeep to survive overnight and hike out the next day, just in case we broke down. It took us over 2 hours to make it to Highway 40, and we came across a few loggers and fishermen and a few 'random campers' who had just pulled up their RV by the road and made camp. Once we reached the proper road (highway 40), we were still in the middle of nowhere, but it was only another hour to reach the Trans-canada and then another 45 minutes to home. This was also our first time coming over the Highwood Pass, which is prime bear country too. Whew! What a drive! Happy Labour Day one and all!
The Highwood House Pass
(1) comments
(The US is in yellow and Canada is at the top in orange)
The bigger version of the map is here
We got a good day for our long drive down and we stopped briefly for a picnic lunch at the Chain Lakes Provincial Park on highway 22.
Just south of there, we noticed that all the fence posts on the western side of the road were decorated with colourful farmers hats and the odd shoe nailed on the top of each post. This went on for more than half a mile and we stopped to take some pictues:
Why do they do this?
And where do they get all the hats from?
Pincher Creek is recognised as the windiest spot in all of Alberta and is home to almost 150 giant wind turbines which generate enough power for 35,000 homes. It's weird to come over a rise and see so many windmills stretching as far as the eye can see! And there are more planned for the same area!
Wind turbine at Pincher Creek
Pincher Creek is also home to Cowboy Cut-Outs! As you drive along, you will see little scenes set up in the fields by the road, featuring cowboys, indians, cattle, tee-pees and various other things from Alberta's cowboy past, all made up of black metal cut-outs. It's nice, but it's a little odd:
Cut-Out Cattle
The road that leads to Waterton Park and at the Waterton townsite itself is quite spectacular, as it skirts the western edge of the prairies in one of the few areas where the mountains meet the plains. Everywhere else along the Rockies there is a gradual transition between the two in the form of the Foothills or the boreal forest, but here the mountains just rise up all of a sudden from the flat plains!
There are 3 lakes in Waterton (Lower, Middle and Upper) and the townsite is right at the junction of the Upper and Middle lakes. The Prince of Wales Hotel (a 1920s-built, US-owned, very old-fashioned and very expensive hotel) is seven stories high and sits on a bluff overlooking the town with an amazing view of the Upper Lake, where you can see right down into Montana:
Prince of Wales Hotel
Upper Waterton Lake
To give you an idea of how close the US is, here's the same photo with the border drawn on it:
As you can see, Waterton townsite is at one end of the Upper Lake, the border is about halfway along the length of the lake and the tiny settlement of Goat Haunt is in Montana at the other, US end of the Lake.
We were staying at the Glacier Suites Hotel in the townsite and had a loft apartment with a king-size bed and a jacuzzi tub in the living room!
The Glacier Suites
Heart-Shaped Love Tub!
Our friends told us that Waterton is a bit like what Banff used to be like in the 1950s - in a lovely part of the country with lakes, forest wildlife and mountains but still fairly undeveloped, with only a few small hotels and restaurants. It has stayed fairly small because it's so remote from the rest of the province and because the train line never came here. It's got a kind of holiday feel, and the streets are full of 'surreys' (same as 'the surrey with the fringe on top'!) being pedalled around the town. It's also got a great view of Montana's mountains behind the lake:
Montana Sunset
And there seem to be lots of Mormons about the place, and deer roaming around the streets.
Deer at the Mormon church
We spent the rest of Saturday exploring the town and had home-made pizza at Pizza of Waterton, and on Sunday we set out to hike across the US border into Montana. The signs said it was only 7km (about 4 miles), so we figured it should only take us 1-2 hours to get to the border. It was very steep in places however, and we made slow going, taking almost 3 hours to reach Boundary Bay. The path weaves its way in and out of the forest and for a long stretch it goes right through prime bear territory. While we were walking through a section of the path where the forest was carpeted with the berries that bears go for, we were constantly sure that there was a grizzly having a snack around the next corner!
In the Chute! ("are you sure this is the right way?")
Bertha Bay (halfway there)
Waves on the Lake
Sun on the Rocks
The border is in the middle of nowhere, just a clearing in the forest which leads down to the lake. There's a little campsite and a biffy there, and the border is marked by a 10-foot wide clear-cut zone which leads right up the mountains on each side of the lake, so it's really clear where the border is. There's no border or customs post, no US or Canadian staff at all, just the border, the lake and the wind.
"Have you been to the toilet?" The last biffy in Canada!
The US-Canada Border
The Boundary
We slipped quietly across the border, entering the US illegally and walked for another 15 minutes or so before sitting down to have some lunch. Having penetrated Homeland Security's defences so easily, we decided to quite while we were ahead and slipped back into Canada. It took us another 2.5 hours of slogging to get back to Waterton, and we only came across a handful of people on the path - there really aren't that many people in Alberta, even on the Sunday before Labour Day!
Canada Rocks!
On the way home on Labour Day, we stopped at a few places in Waterton National Park:
Red Rock Canyon
P at Cameron Lake
We also stopped at a bison paddock which was supposed to be full of buffalo, but there were none to be seen. Maybe they were just shy...
WARNING: Bison may attack you...
We headed back up to Pincher Creek and went west up to Crowsnest Pass which is where the road penetrates the Rockies and goes over the border into B.C.
The road goes right through the Frank Slide, which is where a mountain side collapsed on a small mining village about 100 years ago. The village is gone, but the Slide is still there, huge boulders piled up on each side of the road. It's really impressive and it makes up think what it must have been like to be there when it all came down...
The Frank Slide
We drove on through the Pass until we were over into BC. It seems similar to Alberta, but the biffies are definitely different! We didn't realise that when people are crossing the border back into their home province they seem to get a bit excited and honk the horn, wave their arms, etc. So when we crossed back into AB, we had to do the same! (Well, we didn't want to seem disloyal...)
Welcome to Bee Cee!
First biffy in Bee Cee!
To end our journey, we turned north in the Pass and headed home on the Forestry Trunk Road. This is a gravel road where you can't go faster than 60 or 70 kph unless you want to go off the side! It winds all the way north from Waterton to Jasper, becoming highway 40 in Kananaskis for a while south of the Trans-Canada. And it take you up through some really deep forest, hundreds of miles from the nearest town. There's no mobile phone signal there and there's very little traffic on the road, so we made sure we had enough supplies in the Jeep to survive overnight and hike out the next day, just in case we broke down. It took us over 2 hours to make it to Highway 40, and we came across a few loggers and fishermen and a few 'random campers' who had just pulled up their RV by the road and made camp. Once we reached the proper road (highway 40), we were still in the middle of nowhere, but it was only another hour to reach the Trans-canada and then another 45 minutes to home. This was also our first time coming over the Highwood Pass, which is prime bear country too. Whew! What a drive! Happy Labour Day one and all!
The Highwood House Pass
Wednesday, September 21, 2005
Vegetable Parade
There was a bad frost last night here in Calgary, and it seems that Project: Deck Garden is coming to a close for this year. So it's a good time to have a look at some of our vegetable pics and pics from the recent Carrickfergus Garden Society Flower Show:
Harvest of the deck: scallion, courgette (zucchini) & carrot
Deck scallions
The Big Show (at the Decourcey Centre)
Carrots 'n' Beans
Onions
Pansies
Peas
Potatoes
Runner Beans
The Top Tray
Fuschias
Harvest of the Milebush Garden
(0) comments
Harvest of the deck: scallion, courgette (zucchini) & carrot
Deck scallions
The Big Show (at the Decourcey Centre)
Carrots 'n' Beans
Onions
Pansies
Peas
Potatoes
Runner Beans
The Top Tray
Fuschias
Harvest of the Milebush Garden
Giant Colon Comes to Calgary
Just a brief news item from Calgary - we have a giant colon visiting us from South America!
Click here for more info.
The colon (large bowel to you and me) is made of inflatable plastic and comes from Brazil. It's sort of a big bouncy castle bowel thing, I suppose. And it's big enough to stand up in and walk through:
Projected to be about 31 m long, 31/2 m wide and 3 m high, and to weigh more than 1,000 kg, the walk-through exhibit turned out bigger than expected, to the dismay of organizers who had to hunt out new venues large enough to mount the display and change dates to accommodate longer set-up times.
Luckily, it's not the full 'being in the colon' experience, as it lacks Smello-vision and the floor is not covered in slippery stuff!
More later,
J
(0) comments
Click here for more info.
The colon (large bowel to you and me) is made of inflatable plastic and comes from Brazil. It's sort of a big bouncy castle bowel thing, I suppose. And it's big enough to stand up in and walk through:
Projected to be about 31 m long, 31/2 m wide and 3 m high, and to weigh more than 1,000 kg, the walk-through exhibit turned out bigger than expected, to the dismay of organizers who had to hunt out new venues large enough to mount the display and change dates to accommodate longer set-up times.
Luckily, it's not the full 'being in the colon' experience, as it lacks Smello-vision and the floor is not covered in slippery stuff!
More later,
J
Saturday, September 17, 2005
US Disaster Update
Quick photo from our roving reporter Simon. A picture speaks a thousand words:
Say no more.
(0) comments
Say no more.
Friday, September 16, 2005
Did You Know?
It's a rainy, rather grey day here in Calgary and I'm post-call (as they say). Not a bad night, all things considered, some sleep here and there. Going home shortly to catch up on my ZZZZZs.
Here are some item of Random News, off the top of my head:
Did you know:
The NHL lock-out is officially over and the ice hockey season starts up again tomorrow. The Calgary Flames are playing the Edmonton Oilers in Edmonton, so it should be a bit of a grudge match. Tickets are going for $ 100 per person, and they've had to ration them as demand is so high!
The CBC (Canada's awful national broadcaster, a bit like a much-tamer version of the BBC, mostly considered a mouthpiece for the eastern, liberal, French-speaking part of Canada and much-hated in Alberta) is still on strike, so they've been playing elevator music on the radio for the last few weeks, and the TV news is being read by slightly-stunned management-types. Long may it last!
Gas prices have gone down a little this week. The highest local price was $ 1.15, which is about 55p a litre, which meant that filling up the Jeep cost 84 dollars. Now we're down to 1.10 and the price should fall a bit more. Most of our time here, the price has been between 0.84 and 0.89, which is about 40p a litre.
Because of the massive jump in oil and gas prices, Alberta (which has LOADS of both) has a huge budget surplus and doesn't want to give any of it to the CBC-watching, eastern, liberal, French-speaking part of Canada. So the plan is to divide the cash up between all the residents of Alberta and send everyone a cheque for about 300 dollars! Only in Alberta - SHOW ME THE MONEY!
Dr Huber is away this week on a Temporal Bone Surgery course in Ann Arbor, Michigan, before going home to Switzerland (Sweden?) to sort out his job. He called from where he's staying in the US to tell us that his hotel has the new VOIP phones (Voice-Over-Internet-Protocol) and as a result, can provide free calls for its guests to all of North America. How's that for value?
The HERBs are off in BC at the moment, meeting up with the 4 in-laws who are just back from a cruise off Alaska. They're meeting up in the Okanagan and then heading down to Pincher Creek for the Great Canadian Barn Dance. Richard didn't want to go, but he was out-voted. Dance, boy, dance!
That's all for now from Items of Random News,
J
(0) comments
Here are some item of Random News, off the top of my head:
Did you know:
The NHL lock-out is officially over and the ice hockey season starts up again tomorrow. The Calgary Flames are playing the Edmonton Oilers in Edmonton, so it should be a bit of a grudge match. Tickets are going for $ 100 per person, and they've had to ration them as demand is so high!
The CBC (Canada's awful national broadcaster, a bit like a much-tamer version of the BBC, mostly considered a mouthpiece for the eastern, liberal, French-speaking part of Canada and much-hated in Alberta) is still on strike, so they've been playing elevator music on the radio for the last few weeks, and the TV news is being read by slightly-stunned management-types. Long may it last!
Gas prices have gone down a little this week. The highest local price was $ 1.15, which is about 55p a litre, which meant that filling up the Jeep cost 84 dollars. Now we're down to 1.10 and the price should fall a bit more. Most of our time here, the price has been between 0.84 and 0.89, which is about 40p a litre.
Because of the massive jump in oil and gas prices, Alberta (which has LOADS of both) has a huge budget surplus and doesn't want to give any of it to the CBC-watching, eastern, liberal, French-speaking part of Canada. So the plan is to divide the cash up between all the residents of Alberta and send everyone a cheque for about 300 dollars! Only in Alberta - SHOW ME THE MONEY!
Dr Huber is away this week on a Temporal Bone Surgery course in Ann Arbor, Michigan, before going home to Switzerland (Sweden?) to sort out his job. He called from where he's staying in the US to tell us that his hotel has the new VOIP phones (Voice-Over-Internet-Protocol) and as a result, can provide free calls for its guests to all of North America. How's that for value?
The HERBs are off in BC at the moment, meeting up with the 4 in-laws who are just back from a cruise off Alaska. They're meeting up in the Okanagan and then heading down to Pincher Creek for the Great Canadian Barn Dance. Richard didn't want to go, but he was out-voted. Dance, boy, dance!
That's all for now from Items of Random News,
J
Wednesday, September 14, 2005
101 Things That Are Different in Canada: #2
This is the 169th post since we arrived, which makes an average of one blog per 2.4 days. I say this to make up a little for the slight gap in our blogging in the last few weeks. It's hard to say why exactly, although we have been a bit distracted lately, busy at work, away from home a bit and also trying to make a start at sorting out both of our future job plans. Anyway, we are now back on the case and there are several blogs linesd up already just waiting for a final edit before they get sent out to meet the world. We have had one reader contact us in distress to say that they want more blogging, or else they won't know what we are doing (you know who you are ManUFan), so I suppose we have to keep our end up!
Anyway, over the last few months we have been drawing up a list of things which we find odd, unusual or downright weird about day-to-day life in Canada, and things which are different from life in the UK in big, small or subtle ways. We had already published the first of these 101 Things That Are Different in Canada on Inukshuks, but we have a lot more coming up, so here is #2:
"Touchless car washes"
So you're driving home on Crowchild or 16, and you see all these signs for TOUCHLESS CAR WASHES. Or WAND WASHES. And you wonder what it's all about. I mean a car wash is a car wash, right? And what does Touchless mean? So you decide to give it a go, as the car hasn't been washed for ages and it's pigging. Our local touchless carwash is the Big Bucket over in Crowfoot, and it's a fully-automated affair, just pop your money in the slot for a Bronze, Silver or Gold wash. And then the big door goes up and in you go. And it turns out that it is entirely touchless i.e. your car is not touched at all by any of the car wash machinery, unlike at home where the big brushes go up, around and over your car. In the touchless wash, high pressure jets pummel your paint work and then they spray detergent on the outside as a 'pre-wash'. After a minute or two, they put on the real cleaning stuff, which looks a lot like Cremola Foam, as it's bubbly and multi-coloured:
After another minute or two, it's out with the high pressure jets again and then they spray the wax on and you have to drive out through a massive hair-dryer-type arrangement with a countdown clock telling you when the exit door will come down on the car.
One question arises from the whole 'Touchless' thing - do Canadian drivers have a problem with having their cars touched? You know: "OK, you can wash it, just as long as you don't touch it". Eh? Did they used to have brush-type car washes and then went touchless? Just another of those Canadian mysteries...
And another thing - we don't use the carwash at all between November and March, as the water they put on will freeze as soon as you drive out into the -20 temperatures, and will trap you in the car by forming solid ice around all the doors and in the door keyholes. Just another wee thing to watch out for...
(0) comments
Anyway, over the last few months we have been drawing up a list of things which we find odd, unusual or downright weird about day-to-day life in Canada, and things which are different from life in the UK in big, small or subtle ways. We had already published the first of these 101 Things That Are Different in Canada on Inukshuks, but we have a lot more coming up, so here is #2:
"Touchless car washes"
So you're driving home on Crowchild or 16, and you see all these signs for TOUCHLESS CAR WASHES. Or WAND WASHES. And you wonder what it's all about. I mean a car wash is a car wash, right? And what does Touchless mean? So you decide to give it a go, as the car hasn't been washed for ages and it's pigging. Our local touchless carwash is the Big Bucket over in Crowfoot, and it's a fully-automated affair, just pop your money in the slot for a Bronze, Silver or Gold wash. And then the big door goes up and in you go. And it turns out that it is entirely touchless i.e. your car is not touched at all by any of the car wash machinery, unlike at home where the big brushes go up, around and over your car. In the touchless wash, high pressure jets pummel your paint work and then they spray detergent on the outside as a 'pre-wash'. After a minute or two, they put on the real cleaning stuff, which looks a lot like Cremola Foam, as it's bubbly and multi-coloured:
After another minute or two, it's out with the high pressure jets again and then they spray the wax on and you have to drive out through a massive hair-dryer-type arrangement with a countdown clock telling you when the exit door will come down on the car.
One question arises from the whole 'Touchless' thing - do Canadian drivers have a problem with having their cars touched? You know: "OK, you can wash it, just as long as you don't touch it". Eh? Did they used to have brush-type car washes and then went touchless? Just another of those Canadian mysteries...
And another thing - we don't use the carwash at all between November and March, as the water they put on will freeze as soon as you drive out into the -20 temperatures, and will trap you in the car by forming solid ice around all the doors and in the door keyholes. Just another wee thing to watch out for...
Monday, September 12, 2005
Winter's On Its Way
Well, it's September the 14th and the summer is officially over. There was heavy snowfall west of here at the weekend, 50cm in Crowsnest Pass which brought down power lines and took almost 4,000 houses off the electricity grid. And looking west this morning, there is a lot of fresh snow on the Rockies:
Winter Wonderland
The temperatures have also started to dip down, only 1 degree this morning although we're still getting up into the teens during the day. We're counting the weeks until our own first snowfall now - if it's the same as last year, it'll be sometime in mid-October, a good excuse for a Curry Party if I ever heard one! The Weather Channel is forecasting a colder-than-normal winter too, so maybe we're in for a Real Canadian Winter Experience this year... At least the skiing and snowboarding should be good! I have invested my birthday money in a winter season pass for the C.O.P., which means I can pop in anytime from November to March and board for free. As it's on the way home from work, this means I will hopefully get to go a few times a week and start to build up my snowboarding skills! I've also enrolled for adult ice-skating again this fall, and will be in the Intermediate class now. If I can work on my crossovers and backwards skating, I might go for the Ice Hockey for Beginners class in January! So, I guess I'm looking forward to winter!
Much more blogging to follow!
J
(0) comments
Winter Wonderland
The temperatures have also started to dip down, only 1 degree this morning although we're still getting up into the teens during the day. We're counting the weeks until our own first snowfall now - if it's the same as last year, it'll be sometime in mid-October, a good excuse for a Curry Party if I ever heard one! The Weather Channel is forecasting a colder-than-normal winter too, so maybe we're in for a Real Canadian Winter Experience this year... At least the skiing and snowboarding should be good! I have invested my birthday money in a winter season pass for the C.O.P., which means I can pop in anytime from November to March and board for free. As it's on the way home from work, this means I will hopefully get to go a few times a week and start to build up my snowboarding skills! I've also enrolled for adult ice-skating again this fall, and will be in the Intermediate class now. If I can work on my crossovers and backwards skating, I might go for the Ice Hockey for Beginners class in January! So, I guess I'm looking forward to winter!
Much more blogging to follow!
J
Saturday, September 03, 2005
Off for the Weekend (Happy Birthday, AB!)
And we're back!
Sorry for the short hiatus in posts here, but we've been busy busy over the last few weeks and we have to confess to neglecting the blog a wee bit. Anyway, no more!
This is just a short post to let you know that we're taking off for the Labour Day weekend and will be out of radio and webcam range for the next 72 hours or so. We're heading off to Waterton National Park, way down in the bottom left corner of Alberta, right on the US-Canada border next to Montana.
It's here (the big red dot way down in the bottom left:
It's not clickable, so here's the close-up map:
Click here for a PDF map of the region.
We had some trouble getting somewhere to stay, as a lot of places were booked out, but we managed to secure the last loft suite at the Waterton Glacier Suites. We're hoping the weather will be good, and we're going to drive down Highway 22 pas t Bragg Creek all the way down to Pincher Creek and then turn south-east to Waterton. It's going to be the furthest south we've ever been in Alberta, and it should be fun.
It looks like this
We're driving back on Monday (checkout time is 11am) and then it's back to work on Tuesday. Then Wednesday is my birthday (!) and on Friday I'm off to Montreal to give a talk at the Canadian Association of General Surgeons. It's all go!
PS Alberta was 100 years old last Thursday! Happy birthday Alta!
(0) comments
Sorry for the short hiatus in posts here, but we've been busy busy over the last few weeks and we have to confess to neglecting the blog a wee bit. Anyway, no more!
This is just a short post to let you know that we're taking off for the Labour Day weekend and will be out of radio and webcam range for the next 72 hours or so. We're heading off to Waterton National Park, way down in the bottom left corner of Alberta, right on the US-Canada border next to Montana.
It's here (the big red dot way down in the bottom left:
It's not clickable, so here's the close-up map:
Click here for a PDF map of the region.
We had some trouble getting somewhere to stay, as a lot of places were booked out, but we managed to secure the last loft suite at the Waterton Glacier Suites. We're hoping the weather will be good, and we're going to drive down Highway 22 pas t Bragg Creek all the way down to Pincher Creek and then turn south-east to Waterton. It's going to be the furthest south we've ever been in Alberta, and it should be fun.
It looks like this
We're driving back on Monday (checkout time is 11am) and then it's back to work on Tuesday. Then Wednesday is my birthday (!) and on Friday I'm off to Montreal to give a talk at the Canadian Association of General Surgeons. It's all go!
PS Alberta was 100 years old last Thursday! Happy birthday Alta!
