Quick thank you

Last night I managed to meet up with the author of forgottenalberta.com. I had been sort of gently harassing him to meet up sometime as I really like his site and reading it was an inspiration for my travels.

I just wanted to thank him for meeting and allowing me to compare notes on some of Alberta's forgotten places.With luck maybe I can meet up sometime with some of his contacts and learn a little more about Alberta's history.

Check out his site.

A few minutes in . . .

Galahad, Alberta on November 21, 2015. There are less than one hundred fifty people living here. Someone at one time decided to have some fun with the street names.

Typical of small towns where you may see several businesses in one space, sometimes operated by the same people. This one houses the Post Office, and insurance agent, and The ATB. The ATB or Province of Alberta Treasury Branches is a quasi bank owned and backed by the Province of Alberta. You usually see them in small towns. It is not a chartered bank, banks in Canada are chartered by the federal government. It is ATB Financial these days.

There is a fairly modern school building in the background. It likel closed to declining numbers.

Found it

Finally found my sign on November 21, 2015. Someone who reads this site commented on one of my prior posts about Alberta mud. He described it better than I could as being evil. He is absolutely right. Years ago I can remember my uncle with his farm pickup trying to chisel the mud out of his wheel wells. The high pressure wand wash would not dislodge it.

A little moisture and this road surface will be like the surface of a bar of soap. Very slick.

It runs

When the weather gets too cold I travel in the luxurious comfort of a 2003 Chev Impala. I have owned this for close to a year. Other than it eating two batteries I have no complaints. My view of vehicles is pretty utilitarian. A vehicle gets you from A to B and that is all it really needs to accomplish. That and it requires a decent heater, this is Canada after all. I have taken this down back roads, forestry roads, and a few fields. It has not got stuck and it has not stranded me. Then again a man has to know his limitations. I have run the math on five separate occasions and found it gets a steady thirty miles highway to the Imperial gallon. It will feint and dart through traffic and if you punch it just right it will jerk you into your seat. The radio has started doing some goofy things but I can live with it.

I would like a truck and that will likely be next when the trusty Impala dies. The only modification I would make would be to install a gun rack. This is Alberta after all.

Taken at Buffalo, Alberta November 15, 2015

I do not wash my vehicles. I really cannot be bothered. The other reason is that when my father was alive he went through this phase that whenever I went to visit he would not be happy until he found something related to me that he could criticize. When he found something that he could make my life slightly miserable over he would be happy. To be honest I contemplated not visiting as he made some visits borderline hell. I did my best to overlook this and chalked this particular quirk up to his lousy health and the cocktail of medication he took on a daily basis. I think it contributed to or emphasized his moodiness. A lot of times he was fine. He did have his moments.

One day years ago when I dropped in on my parents for the weekend my car was particularly filthy on the outside. Upon seeing this my father starting harrassing me about it. This was a revelation, instead of him searching for and bothering me about multiple things this instantly gave him one, and only one, thing to focus on for the visit. This was something that he could latch onto right away. So I made a point that any time I went home the car was noticeably dirty. He never bothered to bring up any other perceived shortcomings, this was enough to satisfy him. Visits were much better once he found something to latch onto.

One particular summer visit he got up early in the morning when I was asleep and swiped my keys and drove my car to the local car wash and cleaned it. He claimed it irritated him so much he could not stand to look at it. This was some kind of moral victory for him. Personally I looked at it as getting a free car wash. This did not mean that I stopped. At this point I needed to see how far I could take this.

He has been gone now for close to twenty years and I still do not wash my vehicle. I figure it gives him something to occupy his time in the afterlife.

Hypothetically speaking

So this may, or may not, have happened this last summer while I may, or may not, have been in the vicinity of Medicine Hat, Alberta.

I might have been visiting Empress, Alberta and on my way back to Medicine Hat along Highway 41 to get a room for the night. The sun went down and I was possibly on my motorcycle zipping back on a nice paved secondary highway. It gets very dark on the open prairie. Very dark. There is no light pollution. 

I caught up to a vehicle in front of me. Whoever the driver was, they were driving at a good pace. The irritating thing was on a straight stretch they would drive flat out but when a curve appeared they would slow right down. The same thing happened when they descended a hill. They would slow down so quick and fast that a few times there was a need to spike the brakes. I was beginning to think whoever it was might be impaired simply because their driving seemed so erratic. I attempted several times to pass, the problem was the highway was too hilly and curvy to take advantage. 

Added to this was that my gas display started flashing on the bike showing that my tank was very low. I had a full one gallon gas container with me. I really did not want to pull over in total darkness on a road with no shoulders and pour gas into the bike. Besides, I thought I should be able to push things and see if I could make it. That and I should be able to pass the nuisance in front of me. I guessed that I could not be too far away, ten, maybe twenty miles.

At this point I picked up three vehicles behind me. They only reason they caught up was due to the constant yo-yo speeds that they person in front of me was performing. Then it appeared, the magical straight stretch of highway that would allow me to pass. The pickup in front took the opportunity to floor it. I hit the throttle with the intention of getting by and ran it up to 150 km/h. Then, just about as I was calculating my move the vehicle behind me lit up the night sky with red and blue lights. 

I was thinking that this could be an interesting fine, or set of fines. I immediately took my hand off the throttle to let the bike slow down on its own. No need, the RCMP cruiser passed me, pulled over the vehicle in front of me, then I side-stepped the two of them and carried on. Of course, if this happened, I would have been more circumspect regarding the posted limit. There also would have been just enough gas in the tank to make it into Medicine Hat. Allegedly.

The moral of the story is do not speed on rural Alberta highways in the dark. You might hit a deer.