It’s been a while since we’ve posted anything. I’m sure most people who’ve followed this blog (all 3 of you) are probably thinking we’ve fallen off a cliff. But no, nothing so exciting. We just hung out in Sherwood Park again for a couple of months where nothing much happens…including summer apparently.
We got back from Portugal in early July, spent a few days swapping gear out of the storage shed, and then hit the road back to Alberta via Kamloops and the ranch. It didn’t start all that well as we blew the vehicle engine somewhere in Abbotsford but like a lot our travel ‘events’, things just seem to work out. We got a tow to the nearest dealership about an hour before they closed, got one of the mechanics to look at it, and were told that it’s the connecting rod and surprise…you need a new engine. Our vehicle was packed to the gills with our stuff and we’re contemplating major expense and a big crimp in our travel plans. Surprise #2…the mechanic says,” it’s a recall item so we’ll give you a new engine. Come back in a couple of days to pick up your car. Oh, and we’ll give you a rental while we install it”. We shoulda bought some lotto tickets! All in all, it cost us $0 dollars, an extra drive to Abbotsford from Kamloops, and one days’ delay in the schedule.
But back to Alberta. We stayed in the same airBnB as last time, did much of the same things like getting in some yoga classes, checked out the hot rod/car shows, went to the Bruderheim model-T races again, and socialized a lot. We managed to get in a few hikes along the river valley this year as well as check out the Italian festival, UofA’s Botanical Gardens, and Edmonton’s famous fringe festival. We kept busy. But summer it wasn’t.
It wasn’t exactly cold, but it wasn’t hot either. Apparently, it rained a LOT in June before we got there and continued somewhat for July and August. We had a few severe thunderstorms, several brushes with tornados, and some hail storms with hail the size of baseballs and we actually had to take cover under an overpass for one of them. Heck, we even had an exploding meteor overhead one evening. And now as I am writing this entry in late September, southern Alberta has started winter early with a massive snowstorm.
Hopefully it’s just an aberration as we like our time here, but if this is what climate change looks like then we may have to rethink this plan. Didn’t we say this last year? BC is on fire in the summer and Alberta gets early winter because the sun is blocked out. Sounds like a George RR Martin novel, welcome to the lands of Fire and Ice! Anyway, we got out at the beginning of September and headed east to check out Nova Scotia where they actually did get summer…and somebody named Dorian!