This morning we woke to the softest snowfall imaginable. A sky endlessly birthing swarms of tiny white flies settling down, silently burying everything in muffled whiteness.
5730 Boundless Blanket
2011/02/28
WEM
We finally did it. After talking about it ourselves and with our hosts, several people asking if we’ve done it, and hearing from others that we Should do it, we finally did it. We all piled into the rental car and drove across town through a blizzard with snow blowing across the highway. Exiting to a semi-plowed surface street, at last it came into view through the car windows that even with heater full blast for the half hour drive still had ice on the inside.
1585 West Edmonton Mall
West Edmonton Mall came into view, looking almost black and white in the light snow (even with the window down for this quick snap). Like we’re in Kansas on our way to Oz. Our main destination is the domed roof to the right in this pic (distant, above the black car). Just inside the door, everything was technicolor.
1595 Sub 'n Seal
I went up on a bridge to show you both the sea lion show just visible through the fence at left, a submarine ride at right, the multi-level standard mall, and yes that’s snow collected at the base of the skylight being completely ignored by the throngs in shirtsleeves everywhere. This little world is a colorful combination of downsized Disneyland and Everything R Us all in a bubble with -25 degree windchill on the other side of that skylight. Could make a great disaster movie: to create an emergency, break glass. Quite a fascinating sociological phenomenon. Anne enjoyed the trekky starship hibernation pods (note the head and hands protruding on the left).
1598 Dry Water Treatment
They are actually water massage beds. Think tanning bed, but you’re on your belly with water jets hitting a rubber film touching your back. They stay dry (most people had street clothes on), and it looked like you could dial up the jets much stronger than in a jacuzzi. We paid the reduced senior fare for the less expensive late afternoon entry to the water park part of the mall, suited up, and played grandparents so the real parents could have some fun together. Happiness all ’round. 🙂
1606 Happy Sitter
Just left of my head in this snap is the climbing tower, and at the top is a bungee jump over the pool. If you can climb the tower fast enough, they give you a free jump. I’d just get a chiropractor, thanks. To the left of the waterfall is where the wild surf comes from. There’s a room-sized area where the waves are almost like a typical day at Santa Barbara’s East Beach. Except that area (just at the left edge of this pic) is a flotsam of screaming kids in special (expensive mall-approved) inner tubes. The lifeguards don’t let you swim under the waterfall, but everyone was still having a great time. My daughter thinks of it as a brief and relatively inexpensive Hawaii vacation. 🙂
1621 John's Joys
Anne took a pic of me looking all melty-eyed and blissed out, so I snapped this to share what made me so deeply happy. Last is a fuzzy video capture of my beautiful daughter and her great hubby going to ride one of the water slides. It was such a delight to see them able to enjoy some time alone together while we so enjoyed making it possible.
1617 Quick Date
What a fun and fascinating time we had! Shortly after this, we made the elaborate change back to Winter for the drive home. Anne made some great soup, and we watched the Oscars (hurrah for Colin!).
Comments Off on WEM
2011/02/21
To Town
Before sharing more pix of our flight to Oil Town, here are some pix of the town itself. Giving the “kids” a day off and since we’re on call for tonight in case baby’s restlessness interferes with their sleep, we drove to downtown.
1514 Driving In
We stopped by Tripp to check on her and sweep off the light dusting of snow. I turned the prop through a few times to move the oil around, then we drove back through town past the capitol.
1517 Seat of Power
We drove along the river to cross on a different bridge back South toward our hotel in the Ellerslie suburb.
1522 River Park
We’re back “home” in our hotel now, so here are a few more pix from our flight from Boise. We landed in Dillon (MT) for fuel and to begin the border dance, calling both the Canadian and U.S. customs folks to let them know we mean well.
1355 Dallying in Dillon
Soon after takeoff the changing landscape and climate was evident, with vast snowy expanses giving way to bare ground and deep frozen ponds.
5352 Ice Water
When we reached Butte, the pass looked dodgy in the distance, but we decided to go look more closely since we had plenty of options including an easy return to the nice airport there. Though a bit bumpy, the visibility stayed good on our route along the highway. We were treated to many beautiful scenes along the river.
5360 River & Range
Well, this has grown long so I’ll close for now. Hope you’re enjoying these daily updates and reviews of our adventures in getting here, because it’s lots of fun for me to do them. 🙂
Comments Off on To Town
2011/02/20
Brownies ‘n Boondocks
Today was lazy. It never seemed to get over -21C outside, and we just seemed to lose the will for discomfort. We watched tv, ate junk food, and at last were pulled from our cozy room by the promise of sweet time with family. We brought the dessert, chosen by Anne from a place that caught her fancy with the name Good Earth. Not really brownies, more like that size and shape of dark chocolate cake, and scoring perhaps a 7.3 on the cakometer. Of course, they might have suffered from the journey between Good Earth and Great Family in our sub-freezing little rental car apparently designed for Winter in Los Angeles. Good conversation, laughter, staring at Baby, and a humor/action movie with Boondocks in the title. No photos to share, so I’ll revert to our flight here for that.
In our last episode we dealt with Boise frost and then flew East along the highway to pick up I-15 North. Not that we suffered all the twists and turns like those hapless drivers, because from our vantage point (and with verification from GPS) it was easy to smooth all that out into a nearly straight line. At the same time, I kept within gliding distance of either the freeway or places with good landing options and lots of people. Mr. Cautious as you’ll recall from our last episode. Something we soon learned is that color vanishes in hard Winter.
5335 Sci Fi Landscape
Anything sticking up from the flat snow prairie catches your attention, and any color surviving the overcast sky is a feast for the senses. Coincidental shapes take on alien and futuristic qualities of surrealism. It engenders respect (and hints of incredulity) to imagine the people living in this white vastness.
5336 Context
Yes, that’s the same farm with more context. This angle shows the distant mountains, but (aside from the highway) the other three directions are more bleak. Occasionally there would be some creek or undulation accentuated by drifting snow to create subtle snow sculpture.
5342 Drift Art
The austerity of the natural beauty seeps into you, floating above this remarkable landscape.
5346 Winter Window
The steady drone of our engine and the warmth of our little cabin in the sky made this all the more magnificent. sigh…
Comments Off on Brownies ‘n Boondocks
2011/02/19
More Memories
I didn’t snap any pix today, so while waiting for Anne to bring me her camera I’ve been looking at more memories from our flight – now out of Boise toward Canada. We got to the airport at sunrise for an early start, and it was spectacular!
5326 Boise Airport Sunrise
Unfortunately there was a very light coat of frost on Tripp. It was most noticeable on her tail.
5328 Frosty Tail
Now in case you don’t know about such things, ice can be Very Bad for flying. See, even a thin coat of ice or frost can dramatically change the way air flows over an airplane and that flow is what makes them airplanes rather than cars with really big fins. In short, enough disturbance of the airflow and they don’t fly. So needless to say, Mr. Cautious (me) wanted all the frost off before starting the engine.
5329 Subtle Killer
I don’t know if you can make it out, but there’s a very thin coating of beautiful fluffy frost on Tripp’s wing. It actually got thicker until the sun was up, so getting her all spiffy for flight actually took over an hour of work with the special soft-bristle push broom the airport guy lent me. Then I wondered whether she’d start in the below freezing air, but she fired right up. As warned by another pilot though, the gyro-equipped instruments didn’t like the cold and they complained loudly for perhaps 15 seconds.
OK, looking at today’s pix by Anne I’m going to share my two favs. First is the expression you get from a two month old girl forced to wear a monkey hat and endure being strapped into a somewhat challenging car seat mechanism.
1505 Fashion or Furniture?
I think it was the car seat process rather than the headwear style that had her upset, but she has a reputation for disliking hats of all kinds. Once she has more motor control, it’s probably going to be interesting trying to keep hats on her. In this climate (-25C at the moment) she’s certainly not going out with bare head if her Mom has anything to say about it. Maybe we’ll be gone by then. 🙂
Anne was so taken with a row of shiny lights in the bare trees of a parking lot she tempted fate by standing outside framing this shot. Hope that context adds to your enjoyment rather than simply raising questions about why I went ahead into the store to watch her creative moment. Please keep in mind that at this temperature a couple of minutes produces a feeling not unlike having your face chewed by small animals with very sharp teeth.
1509 Cool Art
I guess it’s partly that I’m old and soft, partly that the thick beard and long hair have faded to dim memory, and maybe partly that my memory itself is starting to dim. Whatever the reasons, -40 when I lived in this climate didn’t seem cold all those years ago.
Comments Off on More Memories
John & Anne Wiley 
You must be logged in to post a comment.