Our New Town

Here is a picture of our new town, Coleman, Alberta. Our house is in the vicinity of the red and white antenna on the left of the picture. It is going to take a bit of adjusting to get back into the small-town groove, but we are looking forward to it. My favorite small town thing so far is having to go to the post office to get your mail.

I've been back at work now for about two weeks with two more to go. Not a whole lot new. I had a brief (very brief) bit of excitement when movie star Jean-Claude Van Damme got on our plane from Frankfurt to Dubai. I was half expecting for a terrorist hijacking plot to unfold that he would have to diffuse. Didn't happen.

Temperature is hot as heck here. It approaches 45 Celsius at mid-day. It doesn't bother me a great deal but I don't stray to far from air conditioning.

While I have been busy, I have spent my evenings getting ideas for our road trip coming up in a few weeks. I kind of like to have things planned to a reasonable level of detail, but am trying to hold back and to take it as it goes. One thing I have been trying to loosely plan is the route. The initial plan is to head straight south into the US and over to Minnesota to visit a good friend. From there, I think through Wisconsin, Michigan and up into Canada around Windsor. Once past Lake Ontario, I am thinking of going back into the States (New York state, Vermont, Massachusetts, and Maine) before entering New Brunswick. After touring the Maritimes, then back through Quebec, Ontario, the Prairies and then home. I have no idea if this is realistic to do in just over 5 weeks, but we're going to have fun trying. If anyone has any tips about what to do and see along the way, please email me. I don't want to miss any must see spots.

Spot the Tool

Penance for my Lazy Winter

Since getting home a month ago, I have been working my ass off. I guess this is retribution for the relaxing winter that I just had. I am starting to look forward to going back to work in Yemen just to get a break. That's an interesting thought.

It started with the big move from Calgary to Coleman. Melissa made two trips before I got home and we finished things off with two more after I got home. It went well enough with nothing damaged or lost. It did make for several long days of packing followed by cleaning followed by unpacking.

Once basically settled, the construction began. When we bought the place, there was a very old garage that was falling down in the corner of our lot. Before I got home, Melissa and her Dad, Jim, leveled the old garage, making way for the new one. Over the last 10 days, we leveled the sloped lot, put in a concrete pad, built a 32 x 16 ft garage and pushed the fence back to open up the yard. Check out the progress pics.

First time through the Cypress Hills

Melissa and I made a trip to Saskatchewan as soon as I returned from work. On the way home, we decided to detour through the Cypress Hills area that straddles the Saskatchewan/Alberta border. We always drive by without giving a second thought of making a long trip even longer. However, we are now afforded more time to do these sorts of things now that Melissa isn't working and are doing our best to do so.

The park is very impressive. It is much different than you would ever expect as the TransCanada just north is one of the more boring stretches of highway in the prairies. If you ever get the chance, take the detour. It takes about 2.5 hrs to go through Maple Creek, the park and then back up to Medicine Hat. There seemed to be a lot of camping areas and it would make a great camping spot.