This space looked different recently because I and my family were on vacation, and we got back just in time to see a major amount of rainfall in one day (Monday).
I should say, we were actually back in time to take in the Wheat Festival activities on Friday.
Prior to that, we had travelled to southwest Saskatchewan to see my brother and his wife in the huge metropolis of Golden Prairie, we made a stop in Calgary for a couple of days, and then travelled to B.C. to visit my parents in Kaslo on Kootenay Lake.
The vacation time was nice in that it helped us to be away from work and the worries and pressures there, and to just enjoy some down time, sleep time, and to have a change of scenery.
All of this has a beneficial effect as one takes time to recharge the batteries and relax. I enjoy long-distance driving, and some of the curves and hills in the mountains are very fun to drive. The curves also mean you have to be careful and pay attention, and not be distracted by anything.
The scenery is well worth the challenge of the drive, and some of the highways in the mountains are beautiful, including the newly-repaved highway through the Rogers Pass.
In Kaslo, we were treated with the music (and traffic) for the Kaslo Jazz Etc. Festival. As tickets are prohibitively expensive and were sold out, with not even day passes available (like most other music festivals have), we had to rely on the excellent acoustics that transported the music up the hill to my parents place, plus daily video posts from the music festival site that combined to allow me to hear a fair amount of good live music.
On the way out of B.C. and into Alberta, we detoured north from Banff up through the National Park, and came across a sight that was both alarming and amusing.
We came upon a huge crowd of vehicles parked on both sides of the highway and a knot of people on the side of the road, clustered with cameras and phones out. I figured they were photographing wildlife of some kind, and getting out at the scene, I at first could not see what got their attention.
In a row of bushes in the ditch below was a small black bear, busily gorging itself on the berries and completely ignoring the crowd of people (many of them Japanese tourists). This was kind of alarming because of the proximity to the bear, a wild animal that could literally have reacted in any number of ways. I viewed this from a distance, hoping the bear did not take it in mind to attack anyone, because that could have gone wrong in so many ways.
Overall, it was a good, relaxing couple of weeks, and now I can resume my work with a renewed energy.
