{"id":5349,"date":"2019-10-16T12:08:00","date_gmt":"2019-10-16T19:08:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/travelblog.lewington.ca\/wordpress\/?p=5349"},"modified":"2019-10-16T16:17:17","modified_gmt":"2019-10-16T23:17:17","slug":"interlude-alberta-the-summer-that-wasnt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/travelblog.lewington.ca\/wordpress\/interlude-alberta-the-summer-that-wasnt\/","title":{"rendered":"Interlude Alberta \u2013 The Summer That Wasn\u2019t"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Edmonton RibFest – Broadmoor Lake Park<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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It\u2019s been a\nwhile since we\u2019ve posted anything.  I\u2019m\nsure most people who\u2019ve followed this blog (all 3 of you) are probably thinking\nwe\u2019ve fallen off a cliff. But no, nothing so exciting.  We just hung out in Sherwood Park again for a\ncouple of months where nothing much happens\u2026including summer apparently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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We got back\nfrom Portugal in early July, spent a few days swapping gear out of the storage\nshed, and then hit the road back to Alberta via Kamloops and the ranch.  It didn\u2019t start all that well as we blew the\nvehicle engine somewhere in Abbotsford but like a lot our travel \u2018events\u2019,\nthings just seem to work out.  We got a\ntow to the nearest dealership about an hour before they closed, got one of the\nmechanics to look at it, and were told that it\u2019s the connecting rod and\nsurprise\u2026you need a new engine.  Our\nvehicle was packed to the gills with our stuff and we\u2019re contemplating major\nexpense and a big crimp in our travel plans. \nSurprise #2\u2026the mechanic says,\u201d it\u2019s a recall item so we\u2019ll give you a\nnew engine.  Come back in a couple of\ndays to pick up your car.  Oh, and we\u2019ll\ngive you a rental while we install it\u201d. \nWe shoulda bought some lotto tickets! \nAll in all, it cost us $0 dollars, an extra drive to Abbotsford from\nKamloops, and one days\u2019 delay in the schedule.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But back to\nAlberta.  We stayed in the same airBnB as\nlast time, did much of the same things like getting in some yoga classes,\nchecked out the hot rod\/car shows, went to the Bruderheim model-T races again,\nand socialized a lot.  We managed to get\nin a few hikes along the river valley this year as well as check out the\nItalian festival, UofA\u2019s Botanical Gardens, and Edmonton\u2019s famous fringe\nfestival.  We kept busy.  But summer it wasn\u2019t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Botanical Gardens<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Butterfly House<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It wasn\u2019t\nexactly cold, but it wasn\u2019t hot either. \nApparently, it rained a LOT in June before we got there and continued\nsomewhat for July and August.  We had a few\nsevere thunderstorms, several brushes with tornados, and some hail storms with hail\nthe size of baseballs and we actually had to take cover under an overpass for\none of them.  Heck, we even had an\nexploding meteor overhead one evening. \nAnd now as I am writing this entry in late September, southern Alberta\nhas started winter early with a massive snowstorm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Car Show<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Hopefully it\u2019s 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\u2019t 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\u2026and somebody named Dorian!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s been a while since we\u2019ve posted anything.  I\u2019m sure most people who\u2019ve followed this blog (all 3 of you) are probably thinking we\u2019ve 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\u2026including 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\u2019t start all that well as we blew the vehicle engine somewhere in Abbotsford but like a lot our travel \u2018events\u2019, things just seem to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5369,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[8,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/travelblog.lewington.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5349"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/travelblog.lewington.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/travelblog.lewington.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/travelblog.lewington.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/travelblog.lewington.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5349"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"http:\/\/travelblog.lewington.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5349\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5411,"href":"http:\/\/travelblog.lewington.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5349\/revisions\/5411"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/travelblog.lewington.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5369"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/travelblog.lewington.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/travelblog.lewington.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/travelblog.lewington.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}