National Finals Rodeo

Well I am off to the Rodeo, no I’m not taking my truck, but it is pretty cold. Lucky for as a retiree from a great company I have Health Insurance that covers my trips to the States for up to 4 months at a crack so I will not become a burden on the non-existent American system. It was about –18C or 0F when I left Fort St. John and about 50F in Las Vegas when I arrived. It took a few minutes to get my luggage and then I hopped in a cab and ran over and checked into my motel (Emerald Suites), the cabby waited and then dropped me at the Thomas & Mack for Performance 1. It was as good as I expected and is probably, as far as rodeo’s go, only second to the Calgary Stampede. Not that I am biased or anything, being a Calgary boy and a volunteer at the Greatest Outdoor Show on Earth.

The shot above is of the opening ceremonies on another night as I was a little late getting to the rodeo on that first night.

I had a little excitement on the way down, when I got off the United Airlines flight from Vancouver in Los Angeles and headed to meet my flight to Vegas I realized that I had left my laptop in my seat on the previous flight. I talked to the agent at my new departure gate (halfway across LA from my arrivals gate) and he called back and then took off running across the tarmac to the other gate. The previous plane was just pushing back to head to Tucson but they had found my laptop and handed it off to my new gate agent. Lucky for me, I am thinking not many of these things get returned to their owner, and certainly not as quickly as mine was.

The hospitality given to the Canadian contingent at the Rodeo is amazing, one night out of the 10 days is actually called Canada N

ight and our flag and national anthem are featured prominently on that night. There are about 115 contestants total in the event and only 4 of them are from Canada, Dustin Flundra, Saddlebroncs, Curtis Cassidy and Lee Graves, in Steer Wrestling, and of course Lindsay Sears, in the barrel racing. All except Dustin have won at least one go-around and Lindsay and Lee have won two and it is not over yet.

This is a shot of Lindsay Sears the reigning World Champion Barrel Racer who carries Canada’s colours into the arena every night.

The rodeo is an evening event so the days are free here in Vegas, yep, I said free, those who know me know that gambling isn't my vice. Hmmmmm, wonder what my vice is? But with those free days I thought I should see some of the surrounding countryside. One day I took a run out to the Valley of Fire State Park north of town and took a few of the following pictures.

Another day I took a spin out on the western edge of Las Vegas to Red Rock Canyon park and got a bunch of photo’s there. It is hard to believe that this spot is only a few minutes off the hubub of the Las Vegas strip.

If you look closely at the shot above there is a group of wild burro’s hiding behind the vegetation.

Other days were taken up with wandering around the many Cowboy Christmas shows and looking at all the latest and greatest clothing, boots, gadgets, tack, and other assorted geegaws. There were a couple of horse sales here also this week, one the Benny Binion Bucking Horse Sale, and the other was a Double Dollar Rope Horse sale. Lot’s of great horses and I think the prices were more than reasonable so it is probably a lucky thing that my horse trailer is still in the frozen north. Speaking of which I am outa here tomorrow morning and on my way back to Fort St. John where it is reportedly –31C this morning. Oh well at least it should keep the mosquito’s down for a while anyway.

Technorati Tags: National Finals Rodeo,Las Vegas,Double Dollar Rope Horse Sale,Valley of Fire,Red Rock Canyon,Emerald Suites

Canadian Health Care Issues - Traveling for Work – Ms. Ella!

I just had a look and it is a few weeks since I updated this journal. I guess that is what happens when you are working every day, lots of interesting stuff going on but nothing that can be shared in a forum such as this.
But there have been some things going on that are worth sharing. Probably the most important is Ms Ella’s recent trip to the Stollery Childrens Hospital in Edmonton. Even before she was born they had identified some issues with her kidneys and although for a while we thought it was resolving itself, last Monday she had a test done that made our medical guru’s think they better get it fixed sooner rather than later.
Tuesday she headed back into the hospital and after a four hour operation came out better than new. They kept her in the hospital for a day or two just to keep an eye on her, but she was sent home Thursday.

Here is a photo that I only wish I had taken, but I stole it from Ella’s Grandmothers Facebook Profile. Pretty cute isn’t she?

Well that worked out pretty well as Wednesday night I caught the late flight out of Fort St. John to head home for a trifecta of doctors appointments myself on Thursday. I stopped by my family doc and she gave me a new prescription so I am ready to roll south if I get done this job anytime before the grass gets green. The dentist just likes to scrape away for a while to help pay for his new car I guess and I actually had an appointment with the eye doctor also. That went well, my eyes are working as well as can be expected at my advanced age and she said that the reading spectacles that I  get for a buck or two at the flea markets are still all I need. Once I got done with all the docs I stopped by the farm to pick up my mail and then headed north to Rocky Mountain House to have a visit with Ms. Ella. She and her family were their usual charming selves so after an American Thanksgiving dinner of pizza with my newest granddaughter I headed back to Calgary to await my early (6:00AM), yep planes can fly that early Deb, charter back to Fort St. John.
I’ve been watching the coverage from the States on this new Health Care bill and listening to all the propaganda that BOTH sides have been shoveling out for public consumption. I know that both sides have concerns and it is really none of my business. And not likely to become that as I don’t think I am giving up my Canadian citizenship anytime soon. And one of the reasons for that is the Universal Health Care system we enjoy here in Canada. Nope it ain’t perfect but it sure as heck beats out whatever is in second place. In the case of Ms. Ella’s recent visit to the hospital that line-up that everyone talks about was about 20 hours from diagnosis to operation, and that probably can’t be beat anywhere in the world. I have heard some folks say that we don’t look after our older folks well if I am older folks I can attest to the fine care I have received on both my regular medical issues and certainly the heart issues I had a few years ago. Now if that is not old enough for you I have watched my Dad (83) and my late Grandfather (98) and their interactions with our system. Now Grandpa was only 95 when he got his last knee replacement so maybe he hadn’t gotten old enough to join what some of my southern friends call the elderly. And my own Dad has been well looked after by the Medical system we have here. So maybe that doesn’t cover all the age groups but my experience ranges from a pre-birth identification of an issue that needs to be monitored, to a 98 year old, now there may be folks outside of that age range that are not being properly cared for by our sytem but I have to confess I have not heard about them.
Now if we could just export our system to the south so we could wander the whole continent at will rather than be restricted to our six months a year. Earlier in the year I wrote a little piece about our system and I guess the core of that one is “IT IS NOT FREE”. We have higher taxes in Canada than in the USA, but not so high that we are overtaxed for what we get. Would I like to pay less tax, you bet, but not at the cost of losing that basic right that we Canadians call Universal Health Care.

Now those who know me know that I am nothing if not curious about what makes people tick. After finishing this blog I went roaming the internet trying to figure out why the opposition to a Universal Health Care system in the US is so virulent. I found this link on wikipedia that does a pretty good job of comparing things and seems at least to me to be pretty balanced.

Groundbirch Chronicles

Yep, I’m still here, reading about all those snowbirds heading for southern sunbelt hideaways. I am living vicariously through their journals and enjoying the trip as if it were my own, well almost. After seeing a few shots of the sunrises they are enjoying I thought I should have a sunrise shot of my own. Here is the Saturday morning sunrise here in Fort St. John, not quite a brilliant sky over some gently waving palm trees but as good as it gets around here for now.

Once that morning fog burnt off we got the blue sky that this country has, to make even a cold day seem bright and cheerful. And just like over there with the Bayfield Bunch we have some beautiful vistas of our own. Just the colour scheme is a little more basic.

And that is it for the feeling sorry for myself part of today’s blog. I took a trip south last week to get a couple of things done around Calgary that needed to be looked after. It was time to for Meg’s annual physical and updating her shots so that if she has to spend some time in a kennel this winter she will be already with all her immunizations up to date. There is a kennel just a mile or so from my place so she won’t have to go far and in fact in her younger days she used to go and visit over there on her own.

I also brought the motorhome back to the farm so that it can be kept under cover in the quonset hut until it gets the call to duty, hopefully in the next few months.

Technorati Tags: Meg,Winter Landscape,Groundbirch

Chickens!

Well not really, they are Canada Geese, and like some other Canadians, they are running for the warmer climes of the southern USA. Tough to watch them go, a year ago today I began my migration to warmer places also, but not this year.

Circumstances change and you gotta change with them so while the geese head south I will stick around the Peace River country. Other than the odd moment of envy I am enjoying my time here and getting a lot of enjoyment out of the job. Sounds strange but I have always loved my work. Can’t believe I get to spend my time in such great places and meet such an interesting array of personalities. Sounds a lot like the RV’ing world.

When your office is the seat of your truck you get to pick the spots. As long as the cell coverage is good and the internet is OK it makes no sense not to have a great view.

And it always helps if you are doing some good also. We are drilling a lot of holes and apparently finding some gas so all is well on the work front also. So I will salve my envy for those who are in warmer spots by imagining I am doing my part to keep North America’s Energy supplies secure and plentiful. But maybe just to ease the pain a little we will raise the price of gasoline and diesel to help compensate those of us in the frozen north for the things we are missing out on…..lol.

 

 

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As usual Natural Gas is found where it is, but it is sure nice that where it is, is also places where I like to be. Here is a shot of one of neighbours moving his cattle through the Sunset Community Pasture. It is fall gather time on the northern ranges and the cattle are being trailed and shipped back to their winter pastures.

 

Once the cattle are gone the ranges will revert back to their original inhabitants who will live here undisturbed for the next 7 months until the cowboys return after the spring rains gets the grass growing again.

 

And I wonder what this fellow below is compensating for with his choice of ride?

Technorati Tags: Dodge Truck,Bull Elk,Wapiti,Drilling for Gas,Sunset Community Pasture,Sunset Pasture Cowboy,Cowboy,Northern Ranges

What’s Up

Just thought I should update the blog so I don’t get to far behind. I am still working up near Fort St. John, British Columbia and the fall weather is in full swing. I am not sure how long I will be here but I have given the company an end of October deadline to get back to me with some timing proposals. If there is a complete winters work here I may stay for the duration, except for the first two weeks of December when the National Finals Rodeo is on in Las Vegas. If the work will not go much into the New Year I am thinking that I will probably take my motorhome south for the Rodeo and then just keep on trucking. I am enjoying the work but the call of the south is loud and clear up in this country this time of year. The geese are all heading out and the “snowbirds” will not be far behind them. But I have all my rigs winterized so there is no need to get in a hurry. Some of you may remember the shot below from an earlier posting.

Well this morning it looks a little different. Yep we got the hay all baled and hauled off and then we had it dusted with a nice white tinge to celebrate the coming of winter.

 

I headed home Tuesday, and on the way I stopped to have a visit with Lacey and Ella in Rocky Mountain House. She sure is a good baby and cute to.

On Wednesday I took my Dad in to get a CT Scan on his legs, they were supposed to do the angio to clear up some blockages but I guess his blood was to thin to do that so he will have to return in a week or ten days. But the CT Scan at least showed us that there is a good possibility that they can clear up the blockages.

Thursday was spent working in the office, primarily talking to our IT Help Desk folks in Malaysia trying to get my corporate email account and computer to work. That was a frustrating 7 hours not helped by the fact that after doing a few hundred different procedures the darn thing is still not working. Oh well, I guess I am just not a corporate kind of guy anymore. I still have my own laptop and if the truth was to be known rather prefer to use it anyway. Not nearly as complicated or well firewalled as the company one so you can actually do stuff with this one.

On Friday I took Dad into get some blood work done and then we decided to visit Mom. Following that we headed over to the relatively new Bass Pro shop north of Calgary. Although I had been, Dad had not, and he was pretty impressed by the decorating that goes into one of those stores. I have been to many in the States but this one is pretty special as it is all local wildlife and local scenery that is in the murals. I am thinking that if you are hiking in this part of the country you don’t need to fret about wolves or black bears as most of them are stuffed in Bass Pro. But I don’t recall seeing a grizzly in there, even though they range quite close, although they have a couple of polar bears that don’t frequent our neighbourhood, at least not yet.

 

The shots above are just a collage of Peace River country in the fall type of scenes. Well there were going to be shots above but I guess I haven’t figured out how to do the album thing with Live Writer so I will continue my quest for a simple solution. Hopefully that will prompt a couple of the Live Writer gurus, like Rick or Al to help me with the problem.

 

The rest of the weekend was spent just loafing about doing some housework and getting the horses shoes off and their feet all trimmed ready for winter. I do believe I heard them sigh with relief when the shoes were pulled as they probably know that is the official end of the trail riding for this year.

Today we are off to my son Paul’s in-laws for Thanksgiving dinner, yes for my American friends we celebrate our Thanksgiving a little earlier than yours and some of the stores are actually closed, believe it or not, to give their staff time to spend with their families, so we give thanks for that too. Rick, a fellow blogger, did a great job of explaining why ours is earlier so I will let you take a trip over to his blog, Rick and Paulette’s RV Travels to explore that.

Until next time, travel safe, and Speedy try not to have to much fun at Kerrville, you are making us all jealous.

Southbound and Down

Well at least half of the journey was south. I took a little drive, 1914 kilometres to be exact, so that I could haul my niece Caron, and her friends Elizabeth and Sidney and their horses to the Calgary Western Riders final gymkhana of the season. For those of you who know what I do at work, that is what I mean by following up on commitments, when you make one you make it happen. For those of you in the Far South 1914 kilometres converts pretty nicely to a LONG drive. Pretty near 1200 miles, but it is a big country up here and lot’s of folks do that for a weekend away. The shot below is of the equine athletes that were competing today.

From left to right, Kokanee, Lucy, and Duke.

As you travel across a small part of British Columbia and a significant part of Alberta on this trip you are likely to run into almost anything, but even for Alberta this is a big Beaver.

You’ll understand that he is a little out of focus cause when you are that close to a beaver that size, look at those teeth, you really don’t want to stop.

Once I got down into my own country things slowed down a little. On Saturday I had to run into the city and thought I should take a shot of the fall colours up here. We don’t get many reds in our country but the golds can be breathtaking. This one is actually “Down the Road from Dogpound”, yep, that is an actual place and this is the road leading into it.

I took some photos of the girls and their steeds while they were racing each other and the clock. Below is Kokanee and Caron digging in to round the turn on the way home.

And this is one of Sidney and Lucy as they round the pole in a pole bending race

And this final Gymkhana shot is of E and Duke turning and burning with a beautiful Alberta mountain landscape in the background. Next year we’ll have to get you in a cowboy hat Elizabeth.

Hauling this team of girls to the arena this summer was a great experience, what great horse women they all are, and their horses are amongst the best trained at the gymkhana. They and a few other of their barnmates that were here, over the summer, certainly had a good time competing with each other and themselves. Now they had a surprise gift for me and a wonderful card. I got a new headstall, I wonder if that was because Caron thinks some of mine are kind of dilapidated or what. Thanks for the headstall , the great card, and most of all the memories girls, it was an honour to be part of your “team”.

This trip was really a quick turnaround but I did get to connect with my cousin Mike, as well as my Dad, Mom and brother Brent and Caron’s little sister and brother, Remi and Christopher. As well my son Paul was out to the farm to stow his trailer for the winter and brought my granddaughter Annika along to chase a few leaves and visit with the scarecrow.

Technorati Tags: Gymkhana,Beaverlodge,Annika,Caron,Elizabeth,Sidney,Dogpound

Another Week in the Peace River Country

I’ve been watching Al from the Bayfield Bunch experiment with Live Writer all week so I thought I should get in the act. 

I am still up in the Peace River country in Northern British Columbia and although the weather has been great there are starting to be signs of fall around as is evidenced by the yellow trees in the foreground of this shot across the Murray River Valley.

Now the shot above here is from a little farther north up the Heritage Highway between Tumbler Ridge and Chetwynd, British Columbia. On the hill in the distance you can see a lot of red trees and I only wish that were a sign of fall. What it does indicate is a Pine Beetle

Technorati Tags: Pine Beetles,Moose,Chetwynd,Tumbler Ridge,Ground Birch,Live Writer,Bayfield Bunch

infestation that has decimated most of the pine forests in BC and is threatening to move to the east in Alberta. These little critters have single handedly destroyed an area 4 times the size of Vancouver Island (approx 14.5 million hectares or 56,000 square miles). Or another way is that is an area equal to the size of the state of Iowa which is the 23rd largest state in the Union.

Now that is devastating for the forests of today but will mean a fresh start for the forests of the future. As humans we tend to think in pretty short terms but long term the forests will recover and may even be healthier.

And here is evidence that things go on. This young (yearling) cow moose is looking pretty fat and happy. Hopefully she will be able to make it through the coming winter and will have a couple of twins with her next spring when she is wandering the Groundbirch area.

The job is going well here and I am collecting a few stories for my memoirs but the thought of spending a winter in the north has me wondering how sane I am.

 

Well I am going to try to publish this Al and see if all your tutoring has solved some of my issues with Live Writer.