What to write about?

When you sit in one place…..especially one place which is not renowned for its sites, or site seeing in general…..it gets tougher day by day to write about what you are not doing.  We came to Beaver Dam in Madden, Alberta intending to  stay only one day, but now find ourselves entering our 7^th day as I write.  No doubt it is very pretty here with the kind of long views I love, but it is feeling like it is time to be moving the wheels of our home again…..soon.

We awoke Monday to moisture laden clouds ready to release their liquid stores back to the land, and rain it did in earnest around 7:30, accompanied by a stiff wind out of the northwest.   One of the best feelings I have is sitting inside our “home” watching the weather and loving how warm, and dry we are inside……even if the coach is swaying slightly from side to side as the winds pummel the driver’s side.

Around 10 it ceased raining for a short time, so I bundled up, took up my laptop and headed for the club house to publish my blog, and then  do a little maintenance on my hard drive…..it’s been some time since I “cleaned” the registry, and I had been noticing a big slow down in operating speed.  This particular morning it had really slowed down so once I connected to the inter web I began downloading an AVG program designed to take care of several issues at one time, including cleaning the registry of any superfluous items.  As it turned out there were close to 1900 items that needed removing.  Once I restarted the laptop after AVG had done its job the increase in speed was startling……why do I wait so long to do this?

By the time I had finished the “cleanup” and published my blog it was after 12 pm, and there was Tom standing over me asking if I was ready to drive into Airdrie for lunch…..oh, right, lunch…..we had agreed to go into town for lunch Monday, plus Tom and Darlene’s Honda SUV had developed a slow leak in the left rear tire that would cause the tire to lose most of its air in less than 3 days.  Airdrie is a modest sized town, but they do have a Canada Tire, Superstore, Walmart, Home Depot, etc.  We thought we would have lunch first, then head over to Canada Tire to have the flat fixed, while the girls did some shopping the Superstore next store (Superstores sell groceries, but also have a complete department store in the same building…..they are quite large).

First, though, we needed to find a place to have lunch…….none of us is really using any broad band on our phones, so no one had done any research on where to eat…..our plan was to just drive down Main Street and see what struck our fancy…..there are a surprising number of Vietnamese restaurants in town, but that was not our goal.  At last we saw an Irish Pub  called Killarney's Irish Pub, where we surmised we could all find something we liked, and that is just how it turned out. 

By this time is was after 1:30 pm, and the Pub was empty except for us…..apparently the local populace keeps very strict lunch hours here, but no worries, it was nice having the restaurant to ourselves.  The food was exceptional…..no brews were consumed this day….just water and ice tea to chase the great food.

Next up was getting Tom’s tire fixed…..we drove over to Canada Tire (by the way, Canada Tire is more than a tire store…..the rest of the store is like a combination Home Depot/Sport Chalet/Target).  We left the ladies at Superstore with the Olivier’s pickup, and Tom, Forest and I headed next door to Canada Tire.  While Tom was making arrangements to have his tire repaired Forest and I wandered around.  Tom suddenly appeared at our side saying Canada Tire didn't have time to work his leaking tire in today, and that he should come back Wednesday…..wait, what?  Back in Southern California most tire stores will fix a flat for free, whether or not you bought your tires there.  They usually stop what they are doing and fix your tire for you….that is good public relations, plain and simple.  Okay, so where to go? 

Forest and Cindy had been in Airdrie on Sunday to attend Mass, and Forest remembered there was a Home Depot and Walmart just past the Irish Pub, so we headed to Walmart….they usually have a tire store, and this one did.  They were on Tom’s leaking tire in about 15 minutes, however, they charge $22.50 to fix a leaking tire, and more is you want the tire re-balanced.  Nevertheless, within half an hour the tire was fixed, balanced and we were on our way next door to Home Depot to pick up some hardware…..I needed some new hacksaw blades, Forest needed a small wrench, and Tom needed some bolts. 

Okay, now here’s the deal….we had left the ladies off at Superstore around 2:45 when we headed off on our leaky tire repair quest.  As we exited Home Depot it was closing in on 4:30, so it had been almost 2 hours since we bid adieu to the ladies…..we thought they might be waiting for us to return….we’re talking about some “minor” grocery shopping being done.  When we arrived back at the Superstore the pickup truck was empty….no ladies in waiting.  We entered the store to find them just checking out…..I looked down at my watch and saw it was almost exactly 4:45…..they had been shopping for 2 hours….. I alluded to this phenomenon the other day.  I guess the silver lining here is that it took us much longer than expected to get the tire fixed, so in the end it all worked out that no one had to wait for anyone…..I still want to know why 30 minutes of shopping takes 2 hours….don’t you?

By the time we returned to Beaver Dam it was well after 5:30, and the clouds were gone along with the cold rain….I think the high for the day was 58 degrees….to all of you who are sweltering somewhere in summer heat…..condolences….up here in Madden, Alberta it feels more like Fall.

We convened at Tom’s coach around 9 pm for dessert (we were all still full from our big lunch) and a movie……dessert was Cindy’s delicious bread pudding again, and the movie was Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol…..an action packed movie that just like the first two installments of this franchise, keeps you on the edge of your seat for 2 hours.  The movie finished around 11:48 pm……as we walked back to our coach you could still see the after glow of the sunset…..amazing!

Thanks for stopping by!