Prince's Island

Prince's Island is a little island located in the Bow River about a five minute walk from Peter's condo. Today I thought I would go sit in one of the many strategically located benches and read a book that I brought up. After getting a latte at a local coffee shop and taking the above picture, I found the perfect bench that overlooked the river. The geese where near, children were playing nearby, it was a little cloudy, and there was a nice breeze. I could not have asked for a more perfect spot. I was about three or four pages into the next chapter and I started feeling little rain drops. They quickly got bigger and I found myself quickly walking for shelter which happened to be a little market close by. The rain passed quickly but I decided that I would head home and read in the quiet of the condo. Happy Friday to all.

Double rainbow! Somebody go buy me a lottery ticket!

I had decided that there was nothing that was interesting enough for me to add to the blog tonight and then it started raining. The wind came up and Peter and I heard some thunder. We were just sitting in the living room watching TV. I turned around and looked out the windows to the South East from the patio and I saw the most beautiful, bright rainbow. As I watched it, it turned into a double rainbow. I am not sure that I have ever seen a double rainbow but it was amazing. It stretched completely across the Calgary sky line and lasted for almost 30 minutes. The picture doesn't really do it justice.

Summer Solstice in Calgary

The day with the most daylight is the summer solstice and that was yesterday, June 21. In Houston I never really thought much about the summer solstice but in Calgary, it is a little bit different. The picture that you see was taken at 10:00 p.m. There was still that much daylight that late in the evening. The sun rise was at 5:21 a.m. and it set at 9:55 p.m. That is 16 hrs. 33 min. of sunlight! In Houston yesterday, you guys had 14 hrs. 3 min. of sunlight. That is quite a difference. You don't realize what time it is by the amount of daylight. It is kind of weird. This view is out of Peter's patio window. You can see the Bow River as well as some other condos. On a clear day, you can see the mountains in the far distance. This is where we have been enjoying both breakfast and dinner. By the way, I loaded this image. Peter has loaded all of the rest of them. I can't wait to set up a blog for my students next year. FUN!

A Texas gate

On the way to the park on Sunday we ran across this sign that said Texas gate. Apparently a Texas gate is what we call a cattle guard.

18 blocks round trip to the grocery store! Really!

Well, today we returned to our old routine, sort of. The alarm reared its ugly head at 4:30 which is exactly the time it was set for. Peter likes to get an early start to the day so that is what we did. Coffee, toast and he was off to work.

The first item on the agenda for me today was to clean out the "garden." The garden is an area of probably 30 feet that surrounds the balcony off of the bedroom. It is a mess, or should I say it was a mess. There were weeds and dead branches everywhere and I don't think that the balcony had been swept since the beginning of winter. To keep the geese from nesting in the garden, the apartment management placed ugly green trash bags around the plants. Those had to go as well. You all know that I love to work with the roses in my yard and since there are no roses in this garden, I had to adapt. Peter was nice enough to stop by Home Depot yesterday so that I could pick up some tools to do my trimming. I enjoyed trimming everything up. Great therapy for me and now I can check that off of my mental list.

The next item that I needed to work on was the grocery list. We had been to the Farmer's Market and the grocery store so we just had a couple of items that I wanted to pick up. Peter had gotten the downtown map out before he left and pointed out a Safeway that I had not been to so off I went. I was a tad apprehensive since I have not ventured out much by myself. The walk to the store was great and did not take as long as I thought it would. I noticed a few important places of business along the way that I am sure that I will visit soon, Starbucks and Tim Horton's. I was back home in about an hour.

More later!

W is the letter of the day.....water, wildlife, waste, and of course walking!

Today, the weather has been absolutely beautiful. The sun is out in full force and so are the Calgarians. We started the day on Peter's patio enjoying a couple of cups of coffee and some walnut banana bread that I had made the day before. Heaven forbid we throw away a ripe banana or two. From the patio you can see the mountains in the distance as well as the Bow River that is located directly behind Peter's condo. It is very peaceful on the patio and I think that I will enjoy sitting out on the patio a lot while I am here. It was a little cool this morning, about 50, but tonight should be great.

By 8:30 we were in the car headed toward the mountains. The drive was less than a hour. Not to far out of town, a huge deer ran across the highway in front of us. We slowed down and it stopped for a second or two and just turned around and looked at us. The first official stop was at Elbow River Provincial Park. We walked a little trail, less than 1 killometer, that led to a beautiful waterfall on the Elbow River. It is hard to put into words everything that you hear and see at a waterfall. This one did not have a huge drop but we were very close to it and you could really see that the volume of water cascading over the rocks was tremendous. We did stick our hands in the river and it was VERY cold as it is snow melt. There are two rivers that we have seen today, the Bow and the Elbow. I think that they meet somewhere near Calgary but I am not exactly sure where.

Our next stop was at a "pond" called the Forgetmenot Pond. It is a small lake that is so clear you can really see almost to the bottom of the lake. We saw quite a few things here that we had not seen before. There was a diving class going on and there were divers in and out of the water. As we continued walking around we noticed that there were little air bubbles escaping from the bottom of the water making ripples on the surface. It was really odd so we stepped closer to see if there were any fish. We saw no fish, just these little bubbles. We are going to look up more about it but it was fascinating to see the little streams of bubbles rise here and there around the pond. We detoured off the trail and found the Elbow River not far away. We had the binoculars and at one point saw a herd of 10 big horned sheep in the distance. Several of them had the big curved horns and several of them were obviously young. More on them in a minute. The next thing that we found was the waste, actually we found poop. Those of you who know Peter well, know that he is always looking for anything that is a little different. We came upon this place, not far from the river, that was apparently a pooping place for bears. There were probably 8 or 10 large mounds of the stuff. Amazing I know that WE found piles of poop. We also found another kind of poop that Peter thought was deer or elk poop. We do have pictures so if anyone is interested, let me know and I will forward them to you.

On the drive out of the park, the herd of big horned sheep that we had seen earlier were close to the highway. We pulled off quickly and got great pictures. They got within about 20 to 30 feet of Peter. The largest male stopped, looked and then guided his herd across the highway and onto a rocky trail. We probably watched them 10 minutes. It was fascinating.

We left the park by about 11:30 and watched the cars pour into the park. We were glad that we had gotten an early start. On the way back we stopped at a little bakery and had a light snack. The day is not over yet but I wanted to get this down so that I did not forget any of it. It really was a nice day and one that we will try to repeat when Karla and Cody get here.

The Farmer's Market

Saturday we got up early and Peter prepared a great omelet full of veggies. We then went to the Calgary Farmer's Market. It is a building on the outskirts of town that is filled with local goods. The parking lot was full and the building was teaming with all kinds of people. The vendors sold everything from locally made cheeses, jams and jellies, honey, Alberta beef, and local produce to craft items. We had a great time wandering through the isles and checking out samples here and there. Peter knew of a place that sold little frozen pies so that was our first stop. They are little individual sized frozen pies with filled with everything from potatoes, onions, and cheese to spicy chicken. We picked out several and they kept them until we were ready to leave. I quickly found a little coffee shop and Peter found some cookies that we had never seen before. They were little light cookies with a Saskatoon filling. That is apparently a small blueberry. We will look for them again. We bought some Alberta beef, locally made cheese, local raspberries, jam, strawberries and assorted other vegetables. We also bought some sliced meat to enjoy with the cheese and a little wine for time on the patio later. I think that we will see the Farmer's Market again before I leave!

Alberta beef is a big deal around here. It is obviously locally raised beef with a little higher price than other beef. We talked to one of the vendors and he told us that he had a small farm, they don't call them ranches up here, and that the reason it is so good is that the cattle are fed on barley not corn like in the United States. We picked out a small steak and grilled it later in the evening. It was good but nothing outstanding.

In the afternoon, we did what Peter would normally do, take a walk. We walked several miles throughout the area. We ended up at a Safeway and picked up a few things. To try something a little different, we road the train part of the way back to the condo. It was just like the trains in Europe, easy to figure out and a little crowded.

After grilling the steak and the local corn on the cob, the evening ended at a local restaurant sharing a blueberry tart with cinnamon ice cream and a coffee with a little extra flavoring, if you can read between the lines. We sat outside and enjoyed the beautiful evening. No one fell asleep in the bathtub but we were glad to call it a day.