Day Ten

We left our hotel in Canmore, Alberta, around 8:30 this morning.  Paul Weaver did today’s meditation while we drove.  He talked about the fact that we are not home yet; our real home is in the future.

Our morning adventure was the Calgary Tower.  It was a perfect day, weather wise, and we could see for miles out over the city and beyond.  The glass floor was a highlight for those less squeamish about heights.  The tower opened just over thirty years ago and attracts tourists from all over.  We also saw the ski ramps used during the winter Olympics which were held in Calgary in 1988.

Paul H. met a friend/business associate in the city with plans to be dropped off at the bus later.  Sharon caught a taxi to the airport since she needs to be home before next week.  The rest of us continued on to see the sights.

At Heritage Park, we toured, ate, shopped, and relaxed for several hours.  We were able to see how people lived years ago in Canada, much the way Williamsburg, VA is a piece of history for us in the states. I was most intrigued with the sod house.  Hut, would be a better word for it.  Our tour guide told us that following heavy rainfall it continued to rain inside for three days after it quit outside.  And she said you didn’t have to fear solitude because you were never alone thanks to all the critters infesting your roof.  I paraphrase, but that’s the gist of it.  Shiver.  I am realizing I have not given enough kudos to those brave pioneer women who helped settle the wild, wild west not so long ago.

Paul and I ate at the little Railway Café, outside at a shaded sidewalk table.  The food was pricey but tasty.  Several others from our group took the train around the park, a few took a carriage ride.  Paul prowled around the museum filled with old cars and such. I read my book, sipped my coffee, took a walk to see the sailboats on a nearby lake, and was utterly content.

We entered the plains of Alberta and left the mountains behind with a suddenness that was startling. I looked back to catch a last glimpse of those breathtaking peaks and was too late.  They were gone as if they'd never been.  I felt sad and wondered if I'd ever see them again. And then I looked at the plains speeding past our windows and realized they have a beauty all their own.  Mile upon mile of wheat fields, some of it already harvested, stretching as far as the eye could see.  What a stark contrast to the landscape from this morning!  There was just nothingness, with an occasional weathered building, dwarfed by the bigness of the unending space stretching from horizon to horizon.  I spotted one set of huge grain silos, also in the middle of nothing but fields of wheat.

Late afternoon I saw a cloud far ahead to my left that looked different from the puffy cumulus clouds dotting the blue sky.  Mile after mile I watched, finally assuming it was dust from a wheat harvester.  Not so.  It was a grass fire, I think.  Fire trucks were on the scene with more on the way.

As beautiful as these endless, flat as a table, acres are, I prefer the mountains myself.  I feel like a bug, unprotected and insignificant in the extreme, in the wide open spaces, vulnerable somehow.  Although I suppose one would be able to see danger coming from much further away without the hills to hide it.  

When I heard we are spending the night in a place called Medicine Hat I pictured an aging hotel with questionable amenities in a hole-in-the-wall place with less than a hundred permanent residents.  What a surprise to find a new-looking, multi-storyed hotel surrounded by all kinds of well-known eating places. And joy, rapture, a Target right across the parking lot.  I love the wilderness.  Until I need a few basics to increase my comfort level.  Then I want a department store.  By the way all of us ladies descended on that place, I don't think I'm alone in my thinking.

I left Target with a full box of our favorite candy bars.  When I got back to our room Paul told me he had bought a case as well.  We seem to be stocking up for the Apocalypse.  Oh well.  We can use them for currency if we haven't eaten them all before then.