An Amazing Day On The Icefield Parkway

This day was blessed with a deep blue sky, not a cloud anywhere. I got my group going at 9am and we were heading straight over to Lake Louise. This place of all in Canada is sure holding a special place in my heart, and I will tell you why. When I was 15yrs old I was totally in love with Canada. And I had seen pictures of a beautiful lake in the Canadian Rockies – Lake Louise – !! I read so much about it that I knew just about everything about the area. And when my  Dad build me a fiberglass kayak, I named it LAKE LOUISE. It was a head turner. For why would a boy call a boat in Germany after a Canadian Lake? Well, my first visit to my dream place was in 1984, and here I am for a whole summer driving bus. A dream became true. Now, I also screwed up today when I forgot to take my SR-card reader for the CANON with me. So here I am with some nice pics and can’t even upload them. I have a few taken with the phone but they don’t show what we saw today. But, like they say, there’s always another day…             Right at the Athabasca Glacier: another Ice Explorer We concluded this terrific day with a family-style meal downtown. As a driver, I even got a free extra ice cream. How’s that for good treatment?                                   At the Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise And when I opened my email I saw a selfie of  Bea accompanied by a birthday cake, which she enjoyed at our neighbour’s place. Yes, she had her party and was invited for supper and coffee. I love those folks. When I phoned Bea early in the morning she told me that Molly had recognized my voice on the phone and had answered with a sad…little whine. “Come home Dad, please”.  I would be lying if I said, I wasn’t touched. And WHAT on Earth is this: NORWEGIAN Elg Hound ON THE TABLE??? Now, thanks for coming by again. Hopefully I’ll have the pics out tomorrow.

Changing Weather

When I opened my door this morning, I stepped right into some wet snow. In fact, it was all white again here on Tunnel Mountain. My appreciation of that was indeed very limited. I walked over to the shower house and had myself a good soak.  Refreshed. I had myself a toast & jam breakfast with a fast cup of coffee, the kind which will dissolve in hot water. But it’s a good one, in fact the best you can buy. I’m kind of fuzzy with my coffee. It’s too thin or too strong I pour it away. Gotta be right. In order to get a coffee “on the go”, Canadians prefer Tim Hortons. They prefer it so much that they are willing to stand in line for 30 minutes, just to get that desired coffee. Just like me this morning at the airport… When I arrived at the bus garage it was sleeting. I had another trip to Calgary on my plate, the third on in 3 days. I’m starting to get to know that piece of the road. Which is good. Taking pictures? Forget it. There was NOTHING to see out there. Just plain greyness. However, while I was parked in a waiting bay at the Airport, the weather lightened up. It wouldn’t be Calgary without it. If you don’t like the weather. just wait 5 minutes. After lunch downtown, (guess what, I even found an empty spot for the bus), the trail went westward to Banff. where our destination was “The Gondola”.   It lets people get up to the top of Sulphur Mountain. It’s quite the ride and in spite the early season the place was teeming with people.  Have you ever seen this monster before? It is made to run on a glacier. Yes, you can take the ride on the biggest glacier in North America, the Columbia Icefield. This one was just on display for the public to see. It’s “Made in Calgary”. Afterwards I suggested scenic Bow Falls and that’s where my people from Thailand spent considerable time. They walked on snow, sat in the snow and took lots of pictures! I was watching from the distance and had me a chuckle or two. There was even a wedding party at work getting their pictures taken.   By now, the weather had turned into the nicest spring weather, the sun was out and I could see people walking all over the place. Supposedly we’ll have some more nice weather tomorrow. Let’s hope that for we’ll go up the famous ICEFIELD PARKWAY. Thanks for dropping in again!

My Home Is My Castle

Of course, you all know this saying. And it is so true. Where ever your home is, whether it’s a mansion, a small cabin in the woods or…yes your RV, it is home to you. And you love to come back to it after having been away. It was exactly this feeling of coming “home” which hit me after I had dropped off my group in the city and was driving towards Banff. However, I delayed my homecoming with just enough time to get into the local food marked to reward myself with 2 DOUGHNUTS. Yes, that’s right TWO doughnuts. And what fun it was to finally sit down with a good cup of coffee and those pastries. I have always found that I had most pleasure of the small rewards in life, often times the one which sprang out of a sudden urge or feeling or came quite unexpected. It had been snowing since the early morning and most places looked like winter had settled in again. Yet, the drive up from Lethbridge was uneventful as the roads were only wet, but clear of snow.  Temperatures were hovering between 30-34F, so it wasn’t too cold. I quickly got the trailer warmed up, and settled on the comfy couch. I am going to have a half day off tomorrow and then it’s back to the Calgary Intern’l Airport for a pickup. And oh yes…even the 3 days after that are gonna be busy. Well, didn’t I ask for it? Yes, I did. And today I woke up to the most gorgeous views. What a scenery! My digs in the mountains.

Bio Gas, Wind Power And Energy Concepts

I had the bus at the ready, when my group was marching up this morning. Our first destination was the Lethbridge Biogas Plant. Have you ever wondered what happens with road kill or dead farm animals or even their manure? Here, in Alberta, they have deloped a project facility which can take care of all of this. When the trucks coming in on a daily basis they unload their smelly freight into a grinder, from where the mass will be pushed into a digester. And even though this sounds pretty easy, it is not. The necessary technology has been hauled across the Atlantic from Germany. But Alberta firms have contributed with their part, so it is an outstanding example of an International cooperation. This facility is actively helping surrounding dairy and hog operations to get rid of their manure, which, if spread in its entirety would lead to a run-off pollution. But that’s not all, What the Biogas Plant is interested in is extraction of the gases. After doing that they are actually delivering a fertilizer back to the farms. Only at now the stuff contains a lot less phosphorus, which is not good for the environment if spread in too big amounts. Furthermore it has reduced the bad odours. Future plans contain a pellet plant, which will turn the product in a sellable commodity. But what happens with all that bio gas?  Well, it is being fed into a giant 1800hp engine which in turn produces electric power. That power is currently supplied into the grid. The initiative came from surrounding farms and involved (naturally) a lot of Red Tape.  Truly an interesting project which today produces about 4.3Megawatt of power. From the company’s website: Lethbridge Biogas will be a full scale biogas cogeneration project fueled by organics comprised of agricultural manures and food processing wastes. Situated in the County of Lethbridge Rave Industrial Park, Lethbridge Biogas has more than the required amounts of organic “fuel” available within 15 km. Generating electrical and thermal energy through the anaerobic digestion of organics reduces greenhouse gases significantly. Odors are reduced by up to 75 per cent using an innovative biological air treatment system. This facility will be the first to incorporate patented thermal hydrolysis technology approved by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency for the destruction of prions that cause BSE in cattle. - See more at: http://ccemc.ca/project/lethbridge-biogas-biogas-cogeneration-project/#sthash.VrDKQrpo.dpuf     Besides of having tons of German-made components in their plant they have also hired German engineers, one of which I met and had a little chat with.    The afternoon was spent in a different place, namely the Taber Wind Farm. This 39 wind-turbine facility is literally way out in the middle of nowhere. The turbines are 90m high and theand                                  The big generator their blades are 40m. We, or course, had a little orientation inside one of the turbine tower. Even I would have loved the view from the top, we stayed confined to the bottom floor. Again the technology was brought over from Europe, namely Denmark and Germany. It was quite impressive to feel all that technology and the huge turbine blades over top of us. Just by pressing a little button on the control panel, the engineer stopped the blades from turning. While there was an ear splitting noise inside the tower when the turbine was still running it became very quiet after it stopped. Also, the blades have been fitted with a little end wing, kind of like you see at the end of airplane wings. That little gimmick has actually reduced the outside swishing noise level. I wouldn’t want to live too close to those monsters at the turning blades are throwing shadows on the ground which be very disturbing to humans. While alternative energy is being researched, some people also work with SAVING energy by f.ex. building energy efficient homes. And that was the last show of the day, when we drove into the little village of Coalhurst where we sure made the neighbours stick their heads together, wondering what this big bus was doing in their quiet little street. Interestingly there was another German at work with this company. Overall, this was a very interesting day for everybody and again I’m feeling lucky being able to see all this and even being paid. Tomorrow we will be heading back to Calgary from where the delegates, all Alberta teachers, start going home again. More bus rides are already stapled up for me. Seems like I will be very busy.