Hell on Wheels Twitter Roundup

It's been a busy summer for the Hell on Wheels cast and crew! They're currently filming season 4 around Calgary, and I've JUST started watched season 3. It took forever for the library to stock it, then I had to get in the queue. It started off a bit slow, but it's picking up the pace by episode 4. My favourite thing about it is the Alberta scenery, I think. And Eva is my favourite character. It's fun to keep an eye on Twitter and see what they're up to, even if there are minor spoilers.

Lost! On Tunnel Mountain!

(The title of the post is intended to be read loudly, with dramatic flair, in a deep announcer voice.)

 

What with one thing and another I hadn't managed to get out of Calgary to go hiking at all this summer, so last Monday we headed to Banff for the day with a couple of friends. I wanted to hike Johnson Lake again, to see it without all the snow, but when we got there, the road in was closed due to a grizzly sighting. So we heeded the sign and went to Tunnel Mountain instead.

 

It started out beautifully - the sun was shining and the view of Banff through the trees was lovely.

I'm the only one without an iPhone...

 

The Banff Springs Hotel

 

By the time we got around to the other side of the mountain, looking east (-ish?) it had started to cloud over a bit, and the cool breeze was nice.

 

 

 

 

Not to mention the fact that the light rain was still clearly far away. I wasn't prepared for such an uphill hike - Johnson Lake is rather flat - so I was pretty winded, and when it started to drizzle and we heard a crack of thunder we thought about turning back. But someone coming down said that the top was only about five minutes away, and since we'd come so far we pressed on.

 

My plan had been to eat our picnic lunch at the summit, but by the time we got up there it was POURING rain so hard I was soaked to the skin. I didn't really mind cooling off, but it wasn't exactly picnic weather, and then the hail started, so we booked it back down as fast as we could go, which wasn't very fast, because it was so slippery.

Drenched at the Summit!

Somehow in the downpour we managed to miss the proper path and ended up on a goat trail that stopped a steep slope that was clearly not the way we'd come up. Frustratingly, we could still see Banff, but not the main path. We bushwhacked around for a while, trying not to slip and break any limbs, and eventually met up with the path again, and by that point the sun was back out and except for the lingering damp, it looked like the storm had never happened. Welcome to Alberta...

 

I was talking to someone later who knew someone else who'd gotten lost and had to spend a night up there, so at least we didn't get THAT lost!

 

I was disappointed to find that there isn't actually a tunnel in Tunnel Mountain - CP Rail was going to build one, and then they didn't.

 

The view of the mountain from Banff.

 

The rest of the day involved a picnic in Banff, in the sunshine, a hot, crispy, sugary BeaverTail, and a lightening-delayed dip in the hot springs. The storm came back just as we were in line to pay for admission, and they waited half an hour to be sure the lightening was over before they opened the pool again. And on the way back we chased a rainbow from Exshaw almost to Calgary.

 

 

Such an adventure-filled day. :) Hopefully there will be more hiking this summer, but likely not till we get to Jasper later this month - stay tuned! This weekend I'm going to the third annual When Words Collide convention, and I'm very excited. I always learn so much and meet interesting people. I went to the first one in 2011, and last year I even blogged about each of the three days. Not sure if that'll happen this year or not, but watch for something about it sometime next week.

 



How to Help Southern Alberta

There are lots of ways to help out in Alberta right now! I'm frustrated because I'm limited by school, allergies, and physical limitations, but I'm trying to do what I can. Maybe this will give you some ideas for how you can help too.

YYC Helps is a website that's coordinating volunteer and donations requests. Needs seem to change from minute to minute, and they're on top of them.

The Volunteer Calgary site is similar, coordinating needs and offers.

Samaritan's Purse mobilizes mud-out units to go into communities in the days, weeks, and months following natural disasters, and stays after the media attention has died down. You can sign up for their volunteer database (physical labour or admin jobs) or make a tax deductible donation.

If you're on Twitter, check out the #yychelps hashtag for the most up-to-the-minute needs. For instance, NeighbourLink is in desperate need of pillows and bedding before 8 pm tonight. They also need hygiene items as they put together toiletry kits.

Most places are indicating that they're full up for clothing donations, although some places were still saying they need men's clothes. I'm sitting on a big pile of women's clothes (mostly business casual) I'm planning to donate to Dress for Success when I can get down there. (I have a final tomorrow! Eeep!)

There are two First Nations communities just south of Calgary, and they were hit really hard and are in need of food and water donations. A MLA in south Calgary, Jeff Wilson, is doing an amazing job of coordinating donation drop off/delivery out of his office. The city is asking people to stay off the roads as much as possible, but I was able to send a couple of boxes of food down with someone from the university who collected a whole bunch of stuff in the north west and drove it all down at once. That type of opportunity seems to form fairly quickly - stay tuned to social media for that kind of thing!

And on the topic of food, the Calgary Food Bank is busy feeding, and while donations are pouring in, there are never enough, and they need hands to help sort.

The town of Exshaw, west of Calgary, about half way to Banff, is a somewhat overlooked disaster zone. Mrs. Harper (Canada's equivalent to the First Lady) was in Exshaw today helping with cleanup, so they're getting more media attention now. I heard from a friend who has a friend who lives in Exshaw that 75% of the 400 homes have been damaged in some way, and they were (or maybe still are?) without power, running water, or any kind of sanitation. If you want to go in and help them mud-out, you have to first register with the Municipal District of Bighorn.

The city has guidelines on organizing your own clean up team, and a booklet on how to safely clean up a flood muddied house. The silt left behind can have all kinds of toxic things in it, and has to be totally removed. It's a crazy intense process - the pictures of the piles of debris along affected streets is mind-blowing.

And last, but I hope not least, our youth group/church is right by the university, where they have 400+ displaced people staying right now. We're hosting a bit of an open house on Saturday afternoon from 1-4pm for people to drop in, have a drink and a snack, and let their kids plays some games, do some crafts, and hopefully make some good memories in the midst of so much uncertainty.

If you want to help, there are dozens of ways - find your strengths and see what you can do! Clean up will be doing on for months, so don't forget about it after the news attention dies down!

Calgary Floods - Friday Night

After the sun came out yesterday evening, we walked back to the ridge to check out the river again. It was really quite beautiful!

Looking toward the mountains

 

Little island - still under water, and will be for a while!

 

There were even more people out looking around then there were in the morning.

 

Same house from the morning - looks like the water level went down a bit, but not enough to make much of a difference. It really sucks for all those people!

 

It will be days before the business core is up and running again, and months of cleanup. Trevor's gone over to a Samaritan's Purse briefing about ways to help - it's ironic that this organization usually has to deploy to other countries to help with disaster cleanup, and this time the disaster is right at home. Although on a scale of disasters, with only three confirmed deaths, the community has been quite blessed. Business will lose money, and people have lost possessions, but most people's friends and family are safe, and that's the most important thing!

 

 

The First Day of Summer, Calgary-Style

Things in Calgary are a bit discombobulated today! I've never seen anything like it - after surviving winters of -40 wind chills where the roads are dangerously icy, the trains can't run, and people still nearly kill themselves to get into downtown, I didn't think anything would just it down, but not-frozen water did it today! Low-lying neighbourhoods are evacuated, including downtown. Train tunnels into downtown are flooded, and most of the bridges are closed, as are government buildings and offices. Everyone who doesn't need to travel is being told to stay home, although of course a lot of people aren't listening...

 

We went for a walk to the top of the ridge, which is a couple of blocks from our house. We're very, very far above the water line, thankfully! There were two choppers circling around the bridges, and another one just flew over our house.



Looking west - you can see the train stopped on the bridge. The clump of trees on the river-side of the building in the top left corner is Bowness Park, which is apparently completely under water.

  

I don't think I've ever seen so many people in our park - there was a steady stream, and the parking lot was full.

 



This house usually has a nice wide lawn between it and the river. We talked about buying in that neighbourhood, but it's too far from the C-Train. VERY thankful we decided to buy at the top of the ridge instead!

 



A little island, completely submerged.

People who are out and about are tweeting lots of interesting photos. The photo of 11th Ave shows floodwaters stopping just a block away from where we used to live! The Stampede grounds are submerged, and the lower levels of the Saddledome are under water. It's all very surreal!

 

A Bag of Hair and a Trip to Vulcan

Lots of people who haven't seen me in person have been asking for a photo of my new haircut. I give you a bag of hair, and the back of my neck. :)

I sent 12 inches of hair to 360 Hair in BC - they make wigs for children with cancer - so I'm really happy about that. And people donated $225.00 through my Canadian Cancer Society fundraising page as well. I'm THRILLED to have short hair again, so all in all, a successful endeavour, I think!

Last Saturday I went down to Vulcan with Shelli to check out the parade, visit the new Star Trek museum (but the grand opening was actually cancelled :( ), and gawk at Robert Picardo (who played The Doctor on Star Trek Voyager). He was also there with Ethan Phillips, who played Neelix.




Parade Float - it played music, and there was smoke coming out of the nacelles.



Phillps and Picardo, in a blue Mustang.
(A vintage blue Mustang convertible is my fantasy car...)



This is HILLARIOUS on so many levels...



An old-school school bus.



There were bagpipes! I didn't get a good shot of them because there were too many people in the way. :P



Picardo and Phillps clearly understand the weight of responsibility that comes with being inducted into the Star Trek Walk of Fame in Vulcan, Alberta.



They gave him a replica of a hypospray used by a Star Trek doctor. I think it might be an original series hypospray - I couldn't hear very well! But it was a very cool gift.



The tourism centre

I give you tweets, mostly by Picardo, who is HILLARIOUS. He's wearing his "You never forget your first doctor" shirt in some of these shots, which is of course a Doctor Who reference, but his Doctor was MY first Doctor, so I really appreciate it. :)

Hell on Wheels Twitter Roundup

I've been saving up a whole pile of Tweets that I've favourite, and I just have to share. We'll start with Hell on Wheels... lead Anson Mount is a regular Tweeter (his horse, Quigley, even has his own Twitter...) and has a bunch of pictures of the 'set' this year, which is really just Alberta prairie. Make sure you click on the links to see his photos. I'm not sure why some of them show up here and others don't...





More to come, eventually! I have a whole bunch of blog posts queuing up... :)

Not-Quite Spring in Glenbow Ranch

 Last weekend I REALLY wanted to get out of the city. My friend Heather was coming down for the weekend, and my grand plan was to go out to Grotto Canyon. Sadly, when I got up on Saturday morning and checked the weather, there was a SNOWFALL WARNING. Driving out to the mountains was probably a bad idea, so for Plan B we went to Glenbow Ranch Provincial Park instead, which is only about half an hour from home. It did fulfill my need to get out of the city - despite the almost-full parking lot, we didn't see anyone else.

We took Tiger Lilly Loop, starting right at the edge of the parking lot and going down into a nice little forest in a valley. It was actually quite pleasant down in there - the wind wasn't bad, and it hadn't started snowing yet.

Rural decay!

 

Queen Anne's Lace - it was literally taller than me. There were half a dozen stalks of it, like some alien plant on another world.

 

"Frozen Pond & Dead Tree"

Then we came out of the shelter of the trees and into an absolute wind tunnel. We had a picnic we were going to stop and eat, but it was SO COLD. So we booked it up this really steep hill (my shins were sore for two days - next time I do Tiger Lilly Loop I'm going to do it down that steep hill FIRST...) and back to the car in record time. We did see a huge flock of robins, which does give me hope that spring really is on the way...

 

Well, whether or not spring weather arrives, spring is here, because today was my last day of classes! I have exams on the 19th, 22nd, 26th, and 30th, and then I have almost two full weeks off before the spring semester starts. Hooray!

 

And Comic Expo is in a week and half! Ahhh! So much still to do if I want to go steampunk, but I can't even think about it until after my German final on the 22nd. And I'm missing the Princess Bride panel with Wesley and Humperdink on the 26th because it's at the exact same time as my English final, which is inconceivable. :(



 

Hiking Johnson Lake

Trevor had December 22nd off work, and I wanted to get out of town, and the weather was decent, so we took a day trip out to Banff. I don't feel like a road trip is a road trip without Timmys, so we stopped in Canmore, and when we got to Johnson Lake, I posed my now-empty cup in a snowdrift. :)

 

 

 

I chose Johnson Lake for our hike from the Parks Canada Banff National Park website. I wanted something fairly flat, not too long in case it was too cold, and nothing further away than the townsite, and since I'm irresistibly drawn to running water, this hike checked all my boxes. :)

The exit for it is the first Banff exit off the Trans Canada, and coming from Calgary you turn right off the exit, instead of left to the townsite. It's only about a 10 minute drive from the exit to the trailhead, and it's beautiful and well-maintained in winter. (The trailhead only has outhouses though!) The hiking trail is a 3km loop around the lake, and took us an hour and 15 minutes, going slowly, and with a stop to eat. We chose to go clockwise around the lake for no particular reason...



Stream feeding in to the lake

 

Grand old tree leaning over the trail. It was around here that I started talking about Narnia. :)

 



The water tower in the very center of the picture should be recognizable to people who drive that section of highway often. Just to give you an idea of how close the lake really is to the road!

 

It was at this point that I said something to Trevor about walking to Mordor... :)

 

And then we saw this sign, and I told Trevor to watch out for sneaking Ents. He *may* have rolled his eyes at me, after I explained what an Ent was...

 

Pattertwig here was the only critter we saw along the trail, except for a dog that nearnly gave me a heart attack!

 

Endor, anyone?

 

On the way back out we saw two elk just on the side of the highway.

 

It wasn't terribly cold, and we were well bundled. The views were amazing, and it was quite quiet. I really loved Johnson Lake, and I definitely plan to go back in the summer! We also wandered around downtown Banff, and went to the hot springs. We had a quick dinner in the mall food court, and then I got one of my favourite things for dessert...there's a BeaverTails place in Banff! I ADORE BeaverTails, so it was a pretty great finish to the day. And we managed to get back to Calgary well before it started snowing, unlike last time we went out there this time of year. All in all it was a very successful day trip, and I highly recommend Johnson Lake.



Fall in Glenbow Ranch Provincial Park

With the weather being what it is today - e.g. snowy - I want to remember the happier, warmer, times of summer! You may remember that in late July I met up with my new friend Shelli and we went to Glenbow Ranch Provincial Park. Trevor and I had the change to get out there on September 22nd, which feels like YEARS ago already, and I took 100+ photos of the beautiful fall colours. It was about 28 degrees, and it was SO gorgeous.

Looking west!

 

The old post office on what was the townsite.

 

I call this one: "The cattle on a Thousand Hills".

 

Alberta at its best!

 

The Bow River - I kept looking around for scruffy surveyors from Hell on Wheels. :)

 

CP Rail

 

Our Canadian heritage in motion!

 

The old post office from the other side.

 

Fall grasses

The difference in the scenery from when I was there just two months before was incredible - it was like seeing a totally different park. We hiked the same loop that Shelli and I did, but when we go back in the spring we're going to try one of the other ones - because we'll definitely be going back there. I can't believe I've lived here for thirteen years and been half an hour away from this gem of a place and had no idea. Check it out, Calgarians! :)

 

Now, off to make myself a nice mug of Earl Grey, hot...