A quick trip to Calgary to see family
I got home Monday afternoon (December 4th) from a 3-night visit to Calgary, to see my kids and their families. I had booked the flights right after getting home from Hawaii, and have been pretty stressed out about it, but it went well. My only unassisted trip since I got hurt was 2 years ago and it didn’t go well, so I guess there was some ptsd involved in that stress.
Anyway, Cathy dropped me off at the airport at about noon on Friday, and when I shot the first photo at 1:17 we were about to start taxiing to the runway.
Lining up on Runway 14R to take off at 1:27 (7 minutes late). The weather forecasts along the route showed a bit of everything so I wasn’t expecting much in the way of views.
Three minutes later, the clouds around Mount Lorne looked pretty cool, then we were soon above a solid layer of cloud.
We got a small break in the clouds at 1:56, but I haven’t yet figured out which lake this is.
Sometimes even cloud formations intrigue me 🙂 – this was at 2:39.
Southbound, the flight is Whitehorse-Calgary direct, then northbound there’s a stop at Edmonton, which is a significant market (perhaps even larger than Calgary judging by the number of people who get on and off there).
As we neared Calgary at 3:33 there was some wonderful light looking to the west over Ghost Lake and up the Bow River Valley toward Canmore.
3:42 – seeing that many people put a knot in my gut.
My son picked me up at YYC and we went to their lovely home on the Bow River, with downtown Calgary visible through a fringe of large cottonwoods. We had no plans for my stay – the first night I was simply enjoying the company of both my kids, 4 of my 5 grandchildren, and my son’s partner (I’m not using their names on purpose).
Although it had been decided that I would stay at my daughter’s home north of Calgary, that got changed Friday night. It worked out very well for me, because my son’s little French bulldog adopted me in a big way. About 01:00 he came to bed with me, going under the covers and snuggling up for about 6 hours!
Early Saturday morning, Cathy suggested that Calgary is a good place to “go see some nice cars, motorcycles or Class C RVs” 🙂 I said Cathy has said a few times I should get an Audi, and my son quickly found one close by that was definitely worth seeing – a 2018 Audi S5 convertible.
Although it looked like it had just rolled out of the factory, it had been stolen and it took $26,000 to put it back in this condition. While it’s pretty easy to check out body repairs, that’s not the case with mechanical, so while it’s still on my mind (it ticked all the right boxes!), we walked away. The salesman, Glenn, was great – no pressure, just facts. When I sent Cathy the photo above she said “it’s lovely – I’ve locked the bank accounts.” 🙂
That afternoon, my daughter and I went out to look at motorhomes – a Google search for the largest RV dealer took us to Traveland in Airdrie. They had nothing even close to what we’re looking for, though – a 26-28-foot Class C, much smaller than what we have now. The one in the next photo was lovely, and priced at $109,978 below list! But no, we’re looking for something at less than 10% of its $689,888 sale price 🙂
My son had to work Saturday, and worked much longer than expected, but some of us went out for dinner at a nearby pub, The Park Kitchen & Bar. It had a nice vibe and the nachos were excellent. I used the next two photos in a 5-star review at Google Maps.
I had decided there was one thing I wanted to do – a return to the Yamnuska Wolfdog Sanctuary just off Highway 1A west of Cochrane. I shot the next photo at 12:41 as we were dropping down to Cochrane.
Of the 119 photos in my folder from this trip, 40 are from Yamnuska, and I’m posting 12 of them here. The fee to walk around the sanctuary is $29 per person, and there are also interpretive/tour options.
I love being around the wolfdogs. While each is unique, some of the wolfdogs, which range from low to high wolf content, exude grace and power as well as being gorgeous.
The enclosures are large – large enough so that even the most wary of wolfdogs can live in comfort. Some have come from truly awful conditions, and stay completely out of sight, while others keep what they feel is a safe distance.
The sanctuary is quite a bit larger than when we visited two years ago, and there are many more signs. Caution signs in several different styles and sizes are everywhere along the fences.
There are also many educational signs with a wide range of information about wolfdogs.
There are also signs describing the background and personality of many individual wolfdogs, such as Kiore.
Our timing was perfect to attend one of the two Wolfdog Wisdom sessions held during the day.
The guide asked us what we thought the wolfdog voluntarily taking part in this session would do with a frozen fish tossed her way – this was the answer 🙂
I didn’t see what triggered this reaction.
A couple of new enclosures at the northeast corner of the property. I would think wide-open enclosures wouldn’t be popular with many of the wolfdogs, though two from the Arctic seem fine with one.
This is Freya, a high-content wolfdog.
I’ll close the Yamnuska section with a couple of general photos of the west side of the property.
We went out for a family dinner again Sunday night. I didn’t take any photos and have no memory of where we went, but luckily I did post a review at Google Maps as soon as we got home. It was The Station Pub & Grill we went to. “It was very quiet on this Sunday evening, but the service for our group of 5 was very good, as was my BBQ Bourbon Burger.”
Getting me to the airport for my 09:50 flight Monday was going to be awkward, so it was decided it would be easier if I stayed with my daughter Sunday night, as it’s a short detour to drop me on her way to work.
The airport was very quiet. I went to the Air North counter just to have them print off my boarding pass, which I find much easier than trying to find it on my phone (and I was the only one there). On the walk to security, I shot the next photo of a sculpture of nude cyclists with a very large Christmas tree.
There have been a lot of changes to YYC in recent years, but it’s still very user-friendly. There’s even a shuttle bus that got me to my distant gate, aided by one of the many white-stetson volunteers who can answer any question.’
It was time for a good breakfast, and a short walk from my gate, I found The Burger Federation. My Google Maps review says: “It was very quiet at 08:00 Sunday morning – the coffee was good, the service very good, and the BBLT omelette was the best breakfast I’ve had in a long time, with bacon, brie, arugula, tomato, parmesan tots, and toast.”
Just after taking the next photo at 08:52, I posted on Facebook: “It’s a lovely calm morning at YYC. Had an excellent breakfast, and my Air North plane just taxied by – we leave in an hour. Had a wonderful visit, and I feel better than I have in a very long time – years probably. A feeling of gratitude comes easy this morning.”
My chariot – Boeing 737 C-FANF – awaits…
We took off a bit early, and I shot a few photos of downtown Calgary from my favourite angle – this one at 09:46. I processed this as an HDR to bring out the detail.
About 17 minutes after takeoff from Calgary, this wonderfully meandering stream, with lots of oxbows, caught my attention.
As we were about to turn to final approach to YEG at 10:16, downtown Edmonton could be seen in the distance to the north. The airport is a long way south.
A minute later, Edmonton’s Allard residential area, currently the southern extent of subdivisions. Highway 2, connecting with Calgary, cuts across the next photo.
The photo above was the last one I shot, due mostly to poor visibility. We were scheduled to spend 50 minutes on the ground at YEG, and arrive back in Whitehorse at 1:55. The weather at Whitehorse was incredibly dreary – very low cloud, dark, and snowing. Cathy picked me up and we were soon home. I was very pleased to see that little snow had fallen while I was away.
I spent a lot of time in bed yesterday, and only got about 1/4 of this blog post done. Tucker and I got up from our first nap of the day at about 10:00, with about 20 minutes more to do on the post, and now we can get on with the day, which will conclude with dinner at a friend’s.
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You certainly would be ‘styling’ in a major way with a lovely convertible next summer… just pretend you are helmetless and turn up the heat and sounds just a bit… Kathy would approve of that.
Cathy would have approved of a toy like that for about 1/4 the price 🙂
Good day Murrster, beautiful trip to touch base with the clan, Cowtown and Audi, RV, wolve dog hybrids, family and freezing of your bank accounts, sounds like something out of the liberals playbook to control those rowdy truckers, have a Big 10-4 Yukon Christmas times, if we get a day, let’s rock it for all it’s worth, plus GST of course 🍻