To Edmonton and beyond

Dec 28 I had planned on visiting Chris, but didn't really feel like getting out of bed until mom made me after noon. Thought about it a while, and eventually decided I would go visit him. Packed up, confirmed it was ok, and headed up.

The roads were ok on the way up, but you could tell sometime recently they hadn't been: I saw about 6 cars in the centre meridian between Calgary and Edmonton, and I'm sure a bunch had been cleaned up already. Definitely says something about the importance of the divided highway, all of them would have entered oncoming traffic otherwise.

Thurs evening after getting to edmonton we had dinner, and Chris's dad and his friend and everyone had just started up a movie. Of all the movies to choose, it had to be the one I couldn't watch. Chris found me hiding upstairs and kept me company until it was done. We watched a little bit of stuff after, but I guess everyone was tired, so instead of staying up most of the night watching movies and playing games as normal, we went to bed pretty early.

Fri morning, Chris got a call from work requiring him to go do some preliminary enviro assessment east of Saskatoon. He encouraged me to go along with him. I debated whether to go with him, since spending most of a couple days in a truck isn't that much fun, and I wanted to be back for Sandi's party saturday evening, but I ended up going anyways. Figured we'd be back in Edmonton early enough saturday that I could make it to Calgary for the party. So, got in the work truck and headed on our way. The first really exciting thing was that we saw a car flip. Actually, I saw a car flip, Chris just saw the wheel flying through the air :) It was on the opposite side of the divided highway (going the other direction)... Seemed to just start to turn sideways (towards the outside ditch of the road) then went across the shoulder off the road (now facing sideways) and I saw it start to roll, then there was a big puff of snow and I saw a wheel fly up into the air... It was pretty scary actually. The rest of the drive was pretty uneventful. Saw the big smokey Husky Lloydminster Upgrader. Hung out in Saskatoon for a couple hours, drove around town, wandered round the U of S campus a little though it was pretty cold. I think campuses are generally pretty cool. I've been to Saskatoon a few times before, though I don't remember the city very well. The spill site, Theodore, was much farther than I thought, so we arrived pretty late in the evening. Searched the side of the highway for the exact spill location, then headed to the hotel for the night. A little bit of He-man on the laptop, and off to bed.

Sat morning, got up, had breakfast and Chris checked the phone book and some local people for info on where a back hoe might be found, and who might own the property. Then off to the spill site... the landowners weren't around so we just went ahead. Mainly just chris hacking the ground with a pick axe and smelling the soil to find the perimeter, then marking it with nails. Then collect a few soil samples, and that was it. The farmer showed up, gave all the info we needed, and then we were on our way. It was about this time that I realised we wouldn't be back in time for me to go to Calgary for the party. On the way back in Saskatoon we stopped at "Ding Dong" restaurant. Part of our tradition of stopping in silly-named asian restaurants. We also stopped for photos with the "Kandahar" road sign, and in Vegreville to see the giant Pysanka (egg). Back in Edmonton, I could have headed to Calgary, but it wasn't worth it, so I stayed another night. Fell asleep instead of watching any movie or games.

Sun morning played a bit, then headed back to calgary. It was cool, about 70 km outside of Calgary, my cousin passed me on the highway! They were on their way back from Jasper or something. Too much traffic and I wasn't feeling competitive so I didn't try to keep up.