What decision would you make?

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What decision would you make if you found yourself in the situation I am about to tell you about? Many thoughts crossed my mind as I pondered this decision and depending which way you look at it, I'm not sure if the decision paid off or not. I will let you be the judge of that!



Before I get into this story, I must first tell you about my Sunday from 2 weeks ago where a typical relaxing Sunday turned into one of activities and adventure. This Sunday was the day of the Calgary Marathon. I probably could have or even should have entered the 5km, 10km or maybe even the half marathon categories for this event but instead I decided to go for a nice walk along the Elbow River and hoped to see some of my more committed colleagues from Fairview run past as they battled the difficult course to complete 42.1km and even 50km. The weather was beautiful and the atmosphere of proud runners walking along the banks of the Elbow after their run gave you a good buzz. This also happened to be the day of the Lilac Festival that was held on 5th near 17th Ave. I had seen festivals like this before, even as far as my own door step on the Esplanade back home at Christies. You had a number of different stalls open up, promoting and selling different merchandise that was either over priced or maybe got your attention for a split second. There was also a parade that walked down the street with marching bands, dancers, Miss Calgary, hotted up cars and motor bikes that had the growing crowd amused for a small period of time.



FRANKS SLIDE & OKOTOKS ERRATIC

During my wondering through the festival, I ran into Amy, who is another Adelaide teacher exchange person who is in Calgary. One of the topics of conversation that came up during our chat and catch up with her and a teaching friend was the drive to Franks Slide. I had already decided that day to drive up to Okotoks Erratic and thought since it was a nice day I would impulsively drive up to Franks Slide. The Okotoks Erratic will not look like much to the onlooker who will probably think its just a big boulder in the middle of a paddock, but if you know the journey of this particular big rock then you may give it the time of day. This boulder was carried all the way from Jasper which is a good 600km away from the glacier many, many years ago and the little story on the sign is quite interesting if you into that sort of area of interest. If anything, the erratic is good fun to climb and reminded me of the days that dad used to take me to the beach where we pretended we were rock climbing up the boulders on the edge of the shore near home. Just a friendly tip, don't have slippery shoes. This is also the first of two occasions in this blog I will admit to a little kid moving faster and more efficiently to get to a point of destination. I wanted to know how to get to the top of the rocks, and a mother kindly volunteered her son to show me the way. He was off like a cut cat and me and my slippery shoes could only just keep him within eye sight. This is a good place for kids to mess around and climb through a small maze of cracks to get to the top of either boulder, and even have a picnic as some locals did while I was there.



Franks Slide was worth the extra 4 hour drive there and back on this particular day. Again, when you look at it you will probably go, that's just a pile of rocks that used to belong to Turtle Mountain over 100 years ago. Its what is underneath the rocks that makes you more intrigued and captivates your attention. The small town of Frank used to be a place where coal mining took place and was at the base of Turtle Mountain. It is believed that the mountain became unstable due to mining that took place and one day a huge avalanche occurred, sending rocks crashing to the ground up to a 3km radius from the mountain itself. Underneath that rubble, is the town of Frank and what is believed to be 70 people, who never saw it coming. There are other stories related to mind shafts collapsing and trapping minors within the mountain, but when you walk out there and see just how far this wreckage of debris has traveled and ponder the thought that the wreckage of a small town lies underneath it all does make you just ponder the whole event for a small moment. The views around it are indeed worth the drive as well and although I arrived late and didn't have time to go in, the museum there is apparently quite good to look through. Just to give you a hint for the next story and where my decision making processes get put to the test, I nearly had the misfortune of running out of petrol on this particular journey. I drove along the road on the way to Frank's Slide and saw the petrol getting lower and no sign of a petrol station. If there was not one near Frank's Slide, I would not have enough petrol to get home and would have been literally stranded in the middle of nowhere. Luckily for me that good old Frankie had a petrol station just after the look out point.



THE BIG DECISION

It turned out that the Calgary Kangaroos squad had another football tournament in British Columbia in a place called Kelowna, well known as a wine region in Canada. It is also part of the Okanagan area which is meant to be very beautiful so naturally I thought this would be a great place to go sight see and play the great game of AFL football in another beautiful location. I was getting very excited about this trip as the drive took me along the Highway 1 drive I had previously enjoyed with Doug on the way to Mara Lake and I was looking forward to seeing the talent of Edmonton and Vancouver football squads as well who were also making the journey. I had been having some trouble lately with my keys getting stuck in the ignition and having to try and turn the car on, drive forward in reverse a small way loosen up the park gear in the hope of getting the keys out. Even happened the other day in the shopping centre car park where an African couple had a merry old chuckle at my expense as I was getting frustrated with the fact the key would not come out.



Anyway, I had not even considered anything going wrong, especially since I drove my Contiki friend Mackenzie and his girlfriend Kim into the city the night before through Calgary with no issues at all, where we had a great catch up and dinner at the Italian restaurant Cibo on 17th. It wasn't until my first stop on my journey on Friday afternoon that this happened to occur yet again at Temple Mountain viewing station. I was desperate to relieve some of the tension in the bladder so I had pulled over and stopped to do so. I went to take the keys out and they wouldn't budge. I tried starting it again, moved it forward, stop the car, and still no budging of the keys from the ignition. It was on the 3rd occasion that I heard the dreaded sound of a click with no motor sparking to life that suddenly the horrifying moment hit me. I tried to start the car again, and again but only heard a clicking sound.



I called the AMA and managed to enjoy the beautiful surroundings I was stranded in for an hour and a half and it was 7pm in the evening when a tow truck came along. I had specifically asked for road side assistance but obviously there was some confusion from my Aussie accent!!!!! The tow truck guy said you could get towed to Lake Louise and wait over night for a mechanic to look at it in the morning or he could tow it back to Calgary. First decision!!! I was never going to get it towed back to Calgary and didn't really like the idea of leaving my car in Lake Louise overnight. It just so happened that my friends Liam, Clare and Danielle were driving near by and I had asked them whether they could pick me up. It was at this point that the tow truck driver gave the car a charge through the battery. What do you know, it started. I told the guys to keep on driving and I should be fine. A bit premature as when we turned the car off to start it again, nothing! The guy then boosted the battery and gave me three options. Option 1 you drive to Lake Louise, leave it there over night and get it fixed in the morning or over the week end and get Liam and the gang to come pick me up. Option 2 drive back to Calgary and Option 3 drive to Kelowna and get someone to take a look at it when I was there. Now option 1, as much as I love Lake Louise I wanted to play footy and see Kelowna and the thought of maybe paying some ridiculous price for the car and staying somewhere overnight did not impress me. Driving to Kelowna was still 460km away and I only had enough for 200km before running out of petrol and probably the smartest choice would be to go back to Calgary.



I have not been known to take risks in my life and usually go the safe option but I was determined to get to Kelowna. I rang Liam again and asked if he could wait at Golden and when I stop the car at the petrol station, they could help charge my battery up and I would be fine. This was indeed the plan I decided to go with, although they had suggested that maybe leave the car in Golden and they would take me from there. I was a good hour away from there and didn't want to leave the car in Golden. As I drove to Golden, I kept changing my mind. I knew Calgary was the best option then I would be home and even rang Liam and told him I'm turning back once or twice. I really didn't know what to do. So I took the biggest risk of all! I told Liam I would meet him at Kelowna and I would fill up my car . . . with the car still running!!!!! I spent a good bit of time during road works looking up to see if this was indeed a safe practice and found 50/50 responses. I was either going to blow up a small town or I was going to get to Kelowna, play some football, hopefully see some of the sights and deal with the car later. I remember how nervous I was when I pulled up, did the prepay at the pump and put the nozzle into the petrol take. Watching the letres on the counter at the pump rise felt like a bomb counting down, but I managed to get it filled up, quickly put the nozzle back and safely drove off to Kelowna.



In some ways I was rewarded for my risk taking as just near Rogers Pass on Highway 1 just before driving under one of the tunnels along the drive, a black figure ran across the road. I had to shake my head and look twice, hoping fatigue was not playing tricks on me. My eyes weren't deceiving me, as up the road, taking a leisurely stroll was a black bear. I was so excited! I pulled over quickly and hurried to get my camera out to take a photo. It turned out that the two cars behind me did not share the same enthusiasm and drove past me in a rush, scaring the bear across the road and out of good picture range!!! I tried to capture it but alas the bear was to quick for me. I drove past to see the poor thing, wrapping its limbs around a tree, hugging it as tightly as someone does a loved one they have not seen for a long time. The remainder of the drive was tiring and I basically snapped when I finally got to my destination and found that there was no left turn to the back packers we were staying at and had to drive an extra 5km of highway before I could do a U-turn. The car got me there safe which was the main component, but I still had decisions to make.



The day of football was long, hot and fun to a point. Again we played in a nice location with vine yards and mountains surrounding the the field that was made up of 3 baseball diamonds and one big outfield. The oval was small and the grass was thicker than the hallowed turf of Myponga Oval where I had played footy for 6 years. It felt like you were lifting weights every time you pulled your feet out of the grass. It was good to play against different competition and challenging as i was in a side that was mainly full of Canadians compared to the other Calgary side that had 16 A grade standard Aussies on the field most of the time. The day did take its toll on you and since I missed out on dinner the night before and missed the lunch run during the day, my energy levels were near empty. We had a good night in town at an Irish pub where we celebrated the days events and it was nice at presentations to be mentioned as one of the better players on the day for the team I played in.



The next day was again emotional to begin with. I had organsied for the BCAA to come out and check my car. As it would have it, I had only taken a spoonful of my breakfast at the backpackers before I was notified they were by my car. So I had only had 2 main meals in 48 hours to this point and very little sleep and was dehydrated from the day before. The BCAA got the battery boosted again and I was lucky that Canadian Tyre was open. I eventually found it and parked near the shop only to have my keys stuck in the ignition again and no way of starting the car to get them out. I walked in to see if they could take a look at it and was told that they couldn't do it to tomorrow. I was shattered as I needed to be back the next day to go to the year 9 graduation ceremony that was held that night. Also I didn't know where that stood in taking days off and could ill afford to have a day where I didn't get paid. I didn't really want to leave my car in a car park with the keys in the ignition either, even if you couldn't start it to steal it. I managed to get one of the mechanics to charge the battery so I could move my car to their area and take my keys out the ignition. Keys remained stuck once I had moved it but the mechanic just thought he would check the battery levels while he had a small moment. Normally, a has 770 units of voltage or whatever it was he was measuring. Mine had 13!!!!!! He then told me that he could change the battery and I could be on my way that day. So $200 later and spending 40 minutes exploring how big Canadian Tyre stores actually were I was back on the road to the back packers with the car safely starting.



I came back to my soggy breakfast still there and did the right thing and cleaned it up before deciding I was in Kelowna and I need to do some form of sight seeing while I was there. I was glad I did! The walk along the lake is beautiful and Waterfront park is amazing. The pictures probably best describe this amazing place that had a bit of a Sunshine Coast feel, both in look, temperature and climate, but just replace the beach with a mountain. I unfortunately didn't get to do Knox mountain but at least I was coming back with mum and sis where I could explore the mountain, maybe go on a wine tour and enjoy Kelowna with some sort of knowledge of where to go. I had also been recommended by the lovely lady at the backpackers desk to go to Summerhill winery as you get free tastings and a spectacular view so I penciled this down for when I go there again later in the year. It was also good to just relax and have lunch on the balcony of Earl's which overlooked the views of the lake. That wasn't the only spectacular views at Earl's as the waitresses were absolutely stunning. It was like a model agency ran the place!! The food was great and it was good to just talk with Danielle, Liam and Clare for a bit before the long journey home.



I still had one last hassle on the way back with my keys getting stuck in the ignition at the petrol station and trying to work out how much petrol I needed to get back home as I had to prepay at the pump. It took two goes but I got there! I was also lucky to see a bear once again and stop and take some photos of some of the awesome sights, particularly near Revelstoke where the 3 Valley Gap and Griffen Lake are located. I was going to do a few other amusements along the way but again, they will wait until when I take mum and sis along this beautiful drive.



So I managed to get back in time for school and get to Heritage Park to enjoy the Year 9 graduation dinner with a nice boat ride on the Glenmore reservoir (ironically Calgary's drinking water) and walk around some of the historic sights of the village, which is made up of what this area looked like in the early 1900's. This will be something I will need to explore further during the summer break. I also was able to enjoy a special treat with the students on Thursday when we hired a bouncy castle obstacle course for the day. The big kid in me was instantly kicked back into action as I ensured I had plenty of go's through the course. Although I had a few skin burns to relieve the experience by, I also found my ego copping a battering. Remember how I mentioned that I got shown up by a kid at Okotoks? Well I was challenged by two year 6 girls to a race, as the bouncy castle had two racing lanes you could race through. The first girl I gave a head start of 5 seconds to and she beat me even without it. I went straight into the second race and got absolutely smashed by the second year 6 girl. I must be getting old!! I had also been been found wanting against female teachers (with a head start) and the PE coordinator twice so I had failed Aussie pride on this particular day. I will say though that the year 6 girls could run the the whole way through the obstacles as it was suited for the more penitent sized person to run through where as I had to craw l through half of it! Anyway (or anyways as they say over here) it was great fun and I really enjoyed it!

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