Blair's Blog

Saturday was a fantastic clear day in southern Alberta, a perfect day for a hike. My brother Scott is a fairly avid hiker/scrambler and wanted to hike the Windy Peak ridge in the southern Kananaskis. Our brother Brian joined us and we headed out late in the morning south through Okotoks and Black Diamond. We made a quick stop at the Okotoks Big Rock on the way through.

We got to “The Hump” on highway 532 about 12:30 and headed up the ridge. It’s a fairly easy walk and there was only a little snow left to deal with. The day was absolutely perfect – sunny, clear, about 18 °C and as calm as I’ve ever experienced in the mountains. The stillness was impressive, usually those ridges are just blasted by wind.

We walked about 2 km or so to the 2nd peak along the ridge (just before Timber Creek Pass on the map) where we stopped and had a late lunch. The view across the foothills and out onto the prairie was spectacular. We could even see the buildings in downtown Calgary on the horizon – almost exactly 100 km away as the crow flies. We started too late in the day to go much further and we could see that there was more snow along the next section of the trail so we headed to the truck and back to the city.

Hopefully this is a good start to doing a little more hiking this year, I can’t remember when I last went on a hike this early in the season.

Tags: Great Outdoors

No Comments »

Crazy weather today in the Calgary area! The forecast this morning was for snow flurries turning to rain then clearing in the afternoon. But that’s not what happened at all. Out our way it was light flurries at 8:00 am when I left the house to take the boys to school. By the time we hit the city limits (10 km), we were driving 5 km/hr in heavy wet snowfall with maybe 1/2 km visibility. We took a few backroads and nearly got smacked from behind as we waited for a break in traffic while stopped at a stop sign. I looked in my mirror and was a little surprised to see a blue station wagon sliding sideways towards the back of the truck. Fortunately the car slid into the ditch rather than into me! The driver was OK but that car wasn’t going anywhere for a while.

We eventually got to school about 9:00 am – it’s usually a 20 minute drive. We trudged through about 15 cm of snow and I signed the kids in. By the time I got to work it was about 9:15 and most of the office was similarly late. Some just abandoned the attempt and stayed home. By the time it stopped we’d had more than 25 cm of snow at my work. By the end of the work day the snow was melting fast, the main streets were mostly bare and many were dry! Crazy day. Continue Reading »

No Comments »

Steven, Mark and I took a little road trip this weekend down to Lethbridge to visit with my Aunt Marg and Uncle Jim. It was meant to be a family trip, but unfortunately Alyssa came down with some kind of stomach bug and wasn’t well enough to be going anywhere.

The impetus for the trip actually began about 6 months ago when we asked my uncle, who is quite an accomplished watercolour artist, if he would consider painting a picture of the Australian outback for us. We wanted a bit of artwork that could be a focal point of our basement and we’d sort of drifted to a red/brown colour scheme that reminded us of the palette of the Aussie bush. (We lived in Australia for 2 years in the 90’s and Steven was born in Sydney). Anyway, Uncle Jim agreed to take on the project and we provided him with some photos we had taken and a arm-wavy description of what we’d like to see and how big the picture should be.

Fast forward to 3 weeks ago and we got a call from my uncle saying that the painting was complete and we should set a time to come down for a visit and to pick up the painting. Once it was clear that Alyssa wasn’t up for the trip the boys and I headed off to Lethbridge, arriving Friday evening.

Saturday we had a lazy start to the day the went out for lunch with my uncle, 2 of my cousins and their boys. We spent the afternoon swimming at the pool at the Lethbridge Ramada and then had dinner with my cousin Drew, his wife Cathleen and their son Liberty. Had a real nice visit with them and the 3 boys had a great time playing computer games and Lego. We stayed at my aunt and uncle’s place over night and drove home this morning through the tail end of an overnight snowstorm that dumped a couple of inches of snow across the prairies from Vulcan all the way to Calgary. The driving wasn’t great, but it didn’t stop the boys and I from stopping for some photo opportunities.

Anyway, the new painting looks pretty good hanging in the basement above the fireplace – I know that we’ll be enjoying it for many years to come.

Tags: Travel

2 Comments »

Me and my dad have been spending the last few weeks doing some rock tumbling. Well we actually started about a year ago but the drive belt broke and it did not get fixed for a long time. It was very fun doing this project. It was especially fun to take out the rocks on their final stage, they looked so cool! Here are some pictures.

1 Comment »