Camping!

We are camping again. We are really ruffin’ it. We don’t have hookups of any kind, however, a couple months ago, we upgraded to 2 ‘deep cycle’ 6 volt batteries and are on day 5 of this camping trip without having to connect to any type of shore power.

Yep, were ruffin it.

 

This battery revelation opens up a whole new world for us and our camping adventures. As long as our water tank is full and our waste tanks are empty, we figure we can go ‘Boondocking’ for at least 6 days at a stretch with no requirement for connections. That is super-duper news. Imagine all the mountain meadows, prairie lakesides and music festivals that this opens the door to us!

We are exactly 30 minutes west of our house. Right now we are pretty smothered in forest fire smoke from all the fires in British Columbia, but it sure makes for some nice photo opportunities.

It a really cool sight to see, when you look straight up, and there is blue sky, but anywhere else and it’s like the thickest fog. These pics are on the way to the camping area.

   God’s country. truly.

On Saturday we were supposed to go to Millerville for the Farmers Market and Fair. Nope. The line up of cars was at least a couple kms long and we were in NO mood to get stuck in some ‘city folk’ crowds. We ended up in Okotoks for some breakfast and then back to the house (because we were so close) for showers.

After a stop at the house the board of directors were anxious to get back on the road and back to the mountains. Pump gas (as Andrew says it) first, then gone again!

Long time ago back story: 17 years ago I went to Saskatoon from my home in North Battleford to upgrade my high school Math and English marks so I could get into Architecture school. I got there and the first thing I had to do was look for a job. I found one, and it was a position selling coupons door to door. The story of the coupon sales cult company is probably a whole nother marathon of blogging to tell that story, but the one thing that did come out of this job was I met my good friend Randy. I have not seen Randy in 17 years, but we reconnected and have kept in touch through Facebook (He moved to England 13 years ago), and I just happened to know that he was back in Canada on a family camping trip. Turns out he was one mountain range to the north from us.

I gave Randy a call and we headed out to Bow Valley Provincial Park, just east of Canmore. He had moved from his campsite over to a day use picnic area on the banks of the mighty Bow River.

It was like we saw each other yesterday. Yammer yammer yammer… yakkity yak. The bonus is Traci and Randy got along very well and Andrew, after a little bit of shyness, was all over Randy t0o! It was good to see you Randy. I remember being very good friends with you back then and this little hour long visit confirmed why. I sure hope it isn’t another 17 years before we get to re-connect again.

If you click on the photo below, it will come up much larger (settings in Livewriter are very user friendly like that) . It is a pretty nice shot and if you want to download it for you desktop background or anything, feel free! The mountain on the far right is Yamnuska. I am going to climb it before the summer is out.

  

My DW enjoying the day

 

My DS enjoying the day

 

My DW and DS enjoying each other!

Randy and I…

Here are the 5’s enjoying some mountain air as well!

I was going to run the Prairie Link trail today, but I couldn’t find anyone to go with (there are lots of bears in the area and DW didn’t want me to go alone), so I am going to run 10k tomorrow in my Neighbourhood when we get home. I do have a date with follower and regular commenter Ellorneo to run this trail next Sunday. I saw a photo of Lorne’s VFF’s on the Vibram Facebook page and I requested a friendship with him. We have commented back and forth as well as facebooked, but never met yet. Should be a fun run! Here is the original Facebook exchange.

I thought it was a funny exchange. Glad I friended him now!