Blogs from Grande Prairie, Alberta, Canada, North America

2011-07-04 - DAY FOUR HINTON TO GRANDE PRAIRIE Today’s drive took us on the scenic route 40 paralleling the Eastern side of the Willmore Wilderness National Park. Driving in Alberta reminded me a lot of Wyoming. Almost everyone drives a pickup so they can pull their RV or Quads or Boat!! This area is certainly a huge playground, and because it was the weekend of July 1 Canada Day and July 4 Independence Day in the US, we passed many groups out for a fun filled weekend. The country was very beautiful in its vastness, something that you cannot capture on the camera. Everything was so green – many shades of green – just as if it was early Spring, and the wild flowers along the side of the road were blooming profusely. Our camp site ... read more

We set off the AlCan Highway today! Yay! Rich and Nancy's brother, Martin, drove up it in 1976 when the highway was still dirt. Now it's paved and has gas stations along the way. We have been reading about the Klondike gold rush and the difficulties the prospectors had on the Edmonton trails to Dawson City. Of the thousands who went out, only a couple of dozen got there. It took them two years to make it, and not one of them was recorded to have found any gold. We looked at the type of forest they had to go through. No wonder! Now, a lot of forest around here is cleared and there are large farms with cattle, hay, and wheat. We're looking forward to seeing our first moose. We didn't see one today. We ... read more

Day 1: Saskatoon-Edmonton: 524 km Day 2: Edmonton Grande Prairie: 459 km Total to date: 983 km Here we go again, another trip, another blog. If you missed the last one, you can catch it at www.mytb.org/patanderin. Pat R and I left Saskatoon on Saturday at noon, as we had planned. The weather wasn't that great, it's been an odd spring weather wise, with overnight frost in early June. So I bundled up, plugged in my vest, turned on my heated grips and set off for Edmonton, a ride that is just over 500 km. Pretty uneventful trip, we stayed at my brother's place in Edmonton and set off for Dawson Creek, British Columbia - mile zero of the Alaska Highway - on Sunday morning. The weather Sunday was worse than the day before. There was ... read more

Sunday, May 24, 2009. 3:01 p.m. Somewhere in Alberta Music of the Moment: Gone by Ben Fold’s Five I guess I’ve got a few days to catch up on, here. These last four days haven’t been terribly eventful, but I will do my best to make my life sound as exciting as it has been of late. First of all, for those who were worried, my iPod has made a full recovery and is currently happily singing to me. And now on to life recap... I made it into Edmonton early on the 20th, at around 10:30 p.m. Aunt Patti was there to meet me, and it was nicely strange to have a familiar face picking me up at the train station for once! I grabbed my luggage (after dodging a very angry and foul-mouthed man ... read more

Wednesday, May 20, 2009. 3:33 a.m. Somewhere... Music of the Moment: Tables and Chairs by Andrew Bird I’ve been hanging out in the lounge car for the past 2 hours or so. It’s awesome having a car all to yourself; I’ve been singing and dancing and charging my phone, laptop, iPod... well I would be charging my iPod, but it seems to have frozen. Can’t figure it out. It’s funny how people like to sleep at 3:30 a.m. I’ve never quite understood that. I figure I’ll just sleep all day tomorrow. In the meantime, I’ve gotten some reading done, gotten some writing done, and worked on a thing I’m preparing for a person who may or may not be reading this blog, so I’d best not reveal his or her name. I’ve been hoping for texts, ... read more

Hello from Grande Prairie, Alberta. The furthest north our tour goes. I think! And it's a nice and cold here. It's another run down town in Canada. Nothing here but some cold Canadians! Well since learning our tour is ending our crew has gone a little crazy. In P.G. one of our sound guys bought a drum set! So we've been jamming back stage, and of course jamming really loudly. We now have to find our own room in the next cities! The Band's room! We also put up our show faster than we ever did, and it wasn't for the shows purpose. The night before we loaded into PG one of the crew guys bought a Led Zeppelin live dvd and the whole crew got pumped when someone decided it would be awesome to play ... read more

Montag, 22.12.2008 Heute ging es also los nach Grande Prairie: um 6 Uhr aufgestanden und gefruehstueckt, winterfertig angezogen und gegen 7 das Wohnheim hinter mir gelassen. Was ich nicht wusste: es hatte ueber Nacht geschneit und ich wollte zur C-Train Station (rund 1km) mit meinem Gepaeck laufen. Die Gehwege waren noch nicht geschoben! Also durfte ich als erste meine "Line" mit meinem Koffer in den Schnee ziehen...Endlich an der Station angekommen, verpasste ich natuerlich den ersten Zug, der zweite war "Out of Order", aber in dem dritten war Platz fuer mich. Also rein. In Downtown habe ich dann die C-Trains gewechselt, und weitere 20 Minuten bis zur richtigen Busstation gefahren. Um dahin zu gelangen, musste ich vom C-Train eine Bruecke ueber eine Strasse ueberqueren, und es war verdammt kalt & windig, aber da ich ja kein ... read more

What do you mean What do i mean? hehe. My countdown on here says 40 days now, thats pretty exciting; scary even. The preparations continue! It looks like I've got my place set up to be rented, therefore the mortgage is covered! That's always good news! I've collected some techie shit for my travels, all of which i think i will use but i'm not sure how much of it is necessary. My collection includes: -GSM world phone (I want to be able to be in touch with CSers and other travellors while im away) -Internet tablet (blogging, skype, gps for biking, email, contacts, etc) -GPS reciever (track my path on bike! use with tablet for GPS) -camara (duh?) -solar charger (to keep all these electronics working even when im in places with no power!) As ... read more

What a day What a day... Yesterday, that is! My sunday nightshift was an interesting time.. I had a talk with my boss in the morning that essentially set me free! We have a pretty big problem at work hiring and keeping employees at the top end. It is a subject that i ask about constantly. We are being overworked, so i want a solution (though i have mine!!) that will help everyone else out. So i had a conversation that went something like this: "Hey Bob, whats the status on hiring shift engineers? any progress? any interviews?" "Why yes Ryan! We are interviewing a guy on tuesday and i have another guy on the line that i will hireif he wants the job" "oh, well that's good, but what are you going to do that ... read more