It rained, then rained some more, then rained some more

Last Weekend….

So last week I headed out to Kananaskis Country, (K-country as it’s called around here).  The weather forecast called for a 40% chance of showers so I figured I was good to go.  I headed out Friday after work in a light rain that slowly intensified on the drive out.  By the time I got to the Blue Rock Campground it was a fairly steady rain. 

http://albertaparks.ca/sheep-river.aspx 

It was so wet and cold I couldn’t even start a fire.  I popped the top and settled in for the evening.  After a cold meal and reading I called it a night. 

That night it poured

That morning it poured

Finally around 11:00 or so it let up enough that I could start a fire with my wet fire wood and cook dome food.  After a hastily prepared breakfast I headed out for a walk.  I surveyed the low hanging clouds and decided to chance it.  There was a  nice looking 2.5 km loop that I thought I’d try.  I dressed and headed out.  The path was really nice along the river and easily walk-able.   Due to the recent rain (see above) and the mountain runoff the rivers were swollen and running fast. 

I’ll continue this post and add some pictures  later tonight or tomorrow….

Okay, I’m behind a little bit.  Lets rewind a couple of weeks ago for my first camping outing of the year.  I headed out to Two Jack Lake in Banff National park.  It was great, as always.  It was a fairly quiet weekend and there were loads of choice spots to choose from.  For a little while I was the only person on the entire loop.  I settled in, started a fire, cracked a beer then cracked my book.  The peace and solitude was amazing.    I’m not complaining but the peace soon ended as the RVs started arriving. 

Next to me a big RV pulled in and a really nice German couple were my neighbors for the night.  Christoph, Isabelle and Levi.   I invited them over to share the fire and have a beer.  Other than loving the Westy, it turns out that Christoph and the family are trekking across Western Canada and into the US, Alaska and into the Arctic Circle.   Apparently it’s been a dream of Chris’ to go that far north.  He’s been doing his own blog of sorts.  Check it out here http://trackmytour.com/Xg2sv .  They had a little trouble with the visa for little Levi and had to hang around Calgary for a little bit so I suggested they head out towards Drumheller.  They had a great time and even stopped into my place for some burgers and Smores for dinner one night before hitting the open road again.

That weekend I also had my friends Nicole and Linda show up.  It was really kinda fun.  We had a great meal, drank far too much wine and played Jenga on a picnic table that wasn’t quite level.  The interesting thing about the Jenga game was that it was the “Truth or Dare” version.  The red blocks were the Dares and the black blocks were the Truth.  Dares and Truths ranged from exchange an article of clothing with the person next to you, kiss the person next to you and so on.  It was fairly tame and we didn’t actually play the Truth or Dare version.  Maybe next time we’ll play and after a few more bottles of wine. 

Overall not a bad weekend. 

Busy weekend kinda…

 

Well on Saturday I was supposed to meet up with a friend and help him work on his bus but Mother Nature conspired against us and dropped snow in the Calgary / Cochrane area.  From what I understand Cochrane wasn’t too bad, but I had over 6 inches in my back yard.  Needless to say we put it off for a bit.  He’s in the process of putting in a new engine that will leave me in the dust.  I’ll be struggling to go up a hill without losing speed and he’ll be gearing down and actually ACCELERATING up the hill.  It’s the journey not the destination right?  RIGHT?!? 

He’s  also in the process of selling his other bus.  It’s a 1967 and it’s sweet.  Check it out.  If you’re interested drop him a line. 

http://www.thesamba.com/vw/classifieds/detail.php?id=1292790

On Sunday I participated in Calgary’s 45^th annual pathway and River cleanup.  There was a group of divers that went in the river and braved the current pulling up trash from the river.  We had everything from cans and bottles to knives and a little model of a Hindu temple… seriously.   All in all we pulled about 500KG out of the river.  It’s amazing that in this day and age people still think it’s okay to litter.  Smokers are the worst… there were hundreds if not thousands of butts.

The blurb on the diving starts at about 5:16 on the video.  Check it out. 

http://www.globaltvcalgary.com/video/news+hour+may+6/video.html?v=2231586390

I of course had the Green Monster out for this.  Besides being fun to drive it was a great vehicle for getting geared up in scuba gear.  All in all a great day out on the river, even though it felt like being in a washing machine sometimes and my buddy twisted his ankle.  Hopefully Donnie takes it easy this week and gets some frozen peas on it and he’ll be ready to go when Lake Minnewanka opens up and we can camp and dive.  Good times!!!

Invasion of busses planned May 5th

Wow, what a dump of snow yesterday.  It kinda sets the invasion of the busses and bugs on the streets of Calgary back a little bit.  Probably only a few days though.  Speaking of an invasion, if you are reading this and in the Calgary / Southern Alberta area mark May 5^th @ 2:00pm on your calendar.  Thinking of an informal get together / flash mob of busses at Mckay’s ice cream in Cochrane, AB.   I’m just putting the word out now and I don’t know who or how many will show up but I think it’s be kind of cool to have an army of busses show up at a Southern Alberta landmark for an afternoon.  I’ll keep you posted as to level of interest and how it all works out.   Posted it on the local VeeDub club forum. 

http://www.clubveedub.ca/forums/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=45721

Other than that, not much is going on this week.  I’m heading to Vancouver for a couple of days for work and in a really geeky kind of way I’m hoping to see some busses while I’m there.  I’ll take my camera and post pictures if I happen to see any. 

After some initial spring pains I am back on the road.  I do want to take the old girl out for a bit of a longer run this weekend if I can.  Maybe I’ll trek out to Nanton and check out the antique stores.  It’s about an hour drive down the highway from Calgary.  Not a lot of hills and no snow.  I figure that it’s a better what than heading West into the mountains. 

May long weekend is typically the start of the camping season here in the Great White North but with the unseasonably warm winter we’ve had here maybe it’ll start early.  We’ll see.  Maybe I’ll even get into the water diving this month. 

Other than getting to work on the heat issue it feels like she’s ready to go for the summer.  Just a couple of spring cleaning things to do like get the upholstery cleaned professionally.  It’s original and there are some stains that I am just not comfortable with.  I’ll be a little happier once they are cleaned.

Other than the odd adventure around town there won’t be too much going on.  Maybe I’ll post something on the Vee-dub club of Calgary’s webpage and see if we can all descend on one location in and around the city like Peter’s Drive in or Mckay’s Ice Cream in Cochrane…. Hmmmm   I’ll let you know how that shakes down. 

Pleasure, pain and click…

Who knew something that is so much fun can be so frustrating.    I went down to the registry a couple of days ago and re-newed the plates for the Green Monster.  It was a beautiful spring day, I had just seen the first Robin of the year, it was a balmy 14 degrees.  It was time.  After a long winter in hibernation it was time to get the van rolling.  I put the little sticker in the bottom right hand corner of the license plate  and I was good to go.  I have to admit I was a little excited as I put the key in and turned for the first time.    It took a couple of cranks as the fuel worked its way through the system and the engine started quickly and easily. 

I backed it out of the drive way and hit the road.  Not much of a drive but enough to work out any of the winter stiffness.  It was great cruising down Deerfoot at 100kph watching the world rip past me .   After about a 45 minute drive I headed home. 

The next morning I had a couple of errands to run so I thought I’d take the van out.  Perfect.  The sun was shining, the birds were singing etc, etc, etc.  I decided on the way home that I’d stop at the gym.  Once I was done I headed out to the van with a big grin on my face knowing that cruising the afternoon away would be my reward for working my ass off at the gym.  I put the key in, turned it and “Click”.  Click…. WTF ?!?  It was running great about an hour ago and now “click”?  Not even engine cranking but click…. SIGH.  Tried push starting it, tried a boost but nothing….. click.

So knowing I didn’t have the time or the tools ( yet) to replace the starter I had it towed.  I know I am going to get shit from one of my friends for this.  He’s going to tell me that we could have done this ourselves and he’s  probably right.   So at the very least the a rebuilt starter is going to be about $200 

http://store.concept1.ca/store/product/53345/Bosch-Rebuilt-Starter-T2-72-79/

So, yes it’s in the shop, and yes I’m gonna have to pay for it (again) and yes my friend is going to give me shit for it.   No estimate yet but I’m hopeful that it’s not going to be too bad.  I’ll keep you posted. 

Pictures from summer past...

With spring, and summer for that matter, approaching fast I can't help but think about hitting the open road in the Westy.  I was waxing nostalgic the other day and came across some of the pictures from last summer.  I was dropping a movie off at Blockbuster (remember them?) and there was the Wednesday night Cruising the Dub at the local A&W.  Here I thought they were helping me park the beast but they wanted me to stick around for a bit....  So I backed in, dropped off my movie and hung out for a bit while people checked out the Green Monster.