Indian Battle Park, Lethbridge

Today, we went down to Indian Battle Park, on the western edge of Lethbridge. It was on this site that the Blackfoot and Cree Indians engaged in the  Battle of Belly River on October 24,  1870.

I have always wanted to go to this park and take pictures of the High Level Bridge.  I finally got my wish.

This bridge is an amazing structure.  It is the largest railway bridge in Canada; I certainly think it is the tallest.  It is situated in an absolutely gorgeous setting — the coulees.  Here, at one time, coal was mined.  There was a community known as Coalbanks, and it was here that the famous Galt coal was mined.  Initially, the coal was hauled out of the ground by horses.  Then an incline railway was built to haul the coal to the top of the coulees where it was transported first by bull-train, then finally by locomotive.  Attempts were made to ship it by the Oldman River, but the fluctuating levels of the river made that impractical and impossible.

The entire place became a historical site sometime in the 60’s.  The mines are long closed and the park is part of an extensive trail system that takes walkers, bikers and hikers from side of Lethbridge to the other.  The park is also home to a grove of heritage trees — Plains Cottonwoods — amazing, rough-barked trees with numerous twisted branches that sweep upwards to the clouds and twine down towards the ground.  They are beautiful old trees.  I’m glad I got to sit beneath their canopy today.

So, here are some of the pictures I took today.  Hope you enjoy them.

Tim and I with the bridge in the background. It was incredibly windy up where we were — can’t imagine how windy it would be on top of the bridge.

A shot of the complex trestle-work of the bridge.

Tim reliving his childhood. He was about a third of the way up one of the trestles. He says they used to climb all the way up to the tracks and then have to scramble underneath and hang on for dear life when a train was passing. Makes me shiver just thinking about it!

One of the signs at the interpretive center for the Coalbanks site.

A piece of coal machinery used inside the mines.

An old coal-car.

The trestles from underneath.

Tim took this one — looking up to the bridge from underneath it.

The lookout point from which I took the pictures of the bridge and the park. That’s a lot of steps!

Rivets in the bridge supports.

One of the heritage Plains Cottonwood trees.

Heritage tree.

The Oldman River with the High Level Bridge in the distance.

On the banks of the Oldman.

Unknown wildflower.

A piece of old, weathered tree.

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Holiday Monday

We are in Lethbridge for a few days.  It’s the Victoria Day long weekend.  So far, hasn’t been that warm, but at least it hasn’t been very windy, either.

Which Lethbridge is famous for.

Today Rick and Connie may be taking us out to Park Lake for a day in the sun.  We’ll play cards and have a picnic.  Just enjoy being.  Am really looking forward to it.

My husband is still sleeping.  It is 9:40.  I had to go roust him out of the lounger he fell asleep in watching TV.  It was 10 to 4 in the a.m.  He does that all the time.  Says he’s going to stay up and watch television after everyone else has packed it in for the night.  Then, he promptly falls asleep.  I don’t really mind because his body is a blast furnace and I can get to sleep without feeling like I’m going to roast to death next to him, but I do wake up with a start if it’s past 3 a.m. and he hasn’t made his way to bed yet.

Anyway, I’ve been up for a while now checking my email and doing a bit of CUPE business.  As I haven’t had much time for blogging lately I dropped in to check out what others have been up to and decided I should do a short post.

Not that it’s going to be anything earth shattering.  Just me prattling on about nothing.

Oh, I have entered a Biggest Loser competition at work.  So far, I am the Smallest Loser, which makes me a total loser.  It’s just incredibly bad timing.  Though I am trying my best.  Yesterday, I went out and bought up a bunch of fresh veggies because I know I can’t eat all the wonderful snacks Connie puts out and I don’t want to clean out their supply of veg’s.  So, I think I deserve points for that.  Also, Tim and I went for a good walk around Henderson Lake first thing in the morning.  I am trying to maintain my schedule and eat properly.

But, Connie made ribs for supper.  Connie makes fabulous ribs.  I had some.  Just a couple — I wanted to go whole hog, but I restrained myself.  And for dessert her Mom made this lovely blueberry angel food cake.  It’s fat-free, so I indulged.  I know I should have had some more raw veggies, but I was weak.  I don’t think I’m really cut out to be in this competition.  I’m just too weak when it comes to food.

However, I am finding that I am becoming way more conscious of how much I eat and that is a good thing.

In the end, if I’m not the Biggest Loser, it won’t be that much of a disappointment, but if I come out of this thing having lost at least a portion of the 15 lbs. I want to lose, I’ll be happy.  Especially, that I will have lost it without depriving myself of food that I love, and, even more importantly, that I won’t gain it all back (and then some) because I won’t have altered my eating habits so drastically.

And. let’s face it, I eat a pretty healthy, balanced diet now.  I think for me it’s more about portion control and getting more exercise.  If I can just make sure I’m keeping active I think I’ll be okay.

And that is about enough of that!

Hope you’re all having a fabulous long weekend.

Ta, ta for now.

Can you believe it?! Snow!

Well, it’s not a lot of snow, but, still, dammit, it’s snow!  Got very chilly here yesterday and just a few minutes ago as I walked to the Library, there were snowflakes drifting down.

And we’re supposed to be having a steak barbecue tonight.  Won’t that be fun — milling around in the frigid air trying to wolf down a hunk of beef before it gets cold and the grease starts to congeal.  Sounds so appetizing.

But, we’ll make the best of it, I’m sure.

The week is almost to a close.  It’s been busy, fun and exciting.  Our dorm room has been plagued with problems.  First the bottom floor shower didn’t work properly.  Fixed.  Then the light in the living room went.  Fixed.  Then, last night around 11 p.m. the carbon monoxide detector went off.  Had to go out find a security guard, get admitted into the locked campus headquarters, tell Ray about our problem, nice old security guys gave us a Timbit while we waited for another nice old security guard to make some phone calls.  Finally got Lorne on the phone who said he’d be over in 10 minutes to take a look.  Walked back to our room, another room-mate had shown up in our absence, gotten frightened because we’d left all the lights on and I’d left my bedroom door wide open — something I never do — so she’d gone running back to the ‘poker palace’ to get help because she was afraid something had happened to Marliss and I, we assured her we were fine, had a great laugh, then sat around waiting for Lorne.  Lorne came, brought a new detector, installed it, assured us we wouldn’t expire from carbon monoxide through the night, but we decided, cold as it was to sleep with our windows open, just in case.

Needless to say, we made it through the night.

I didn’t get a walk in this morning because I decided to sleep in til 7 a.m.  It was after midnight by the time we got into bed, and I’d had a tough night playing poker, besides the previously mentioned excitement.  I damn near won!  Came down to me and a guy named Troy.  My undoing was a daring (stupid) moved to bluff with a 2,3 unsuited combo.  Lucky for me another 3 turned up on the flop.  Unlucky for me, Troy was holding a pair of 4’s.  My next hand I was holding a Q,6 and played it.  He went all in, I had no choice.  He was holding K,7.  On the flop and the river the cards came up giving me a shot at a straight, unfortunately I didn’t the card I needed on the turn.

Ah, well that’s why they call it a game of chance.

I lost $10, but I had a great time.

Gotta go, get back to class — we’re learning about using social media to promote our Locals today.

Ta, everyone — have a great day.  I hope it’s warm where you are.

Thank you

Thank you everyone who left me such lovely comments about the Kreativ Blogger award.  Sorry for the delay in replying, but, as usual I’ve been crazy busy. 

At this moment, I am typing on a computer in the Olds College Library.  It’s a beautiful spot.  Both the library and Olds.

I am here on a CUPE Weeklong School retreat.  Taking New Officer’s training.  As I’m now 3 years into my term as President of our Local I wouldn’t consider myself a ‘new’ officer, but I figured the training might have some relevant stuff. 

Turns out the first two days are all about public speaking.  Now, I can speak, some times endlessly.  I’m also fairly confident getting up in front of a crowd and saying a few words on behalf of whatever.  But, when it comes to personal stuff — that’s a whole new ballgame.

We started out having to give a short, 2-minute, blurb about ourselves.  I wrote it out no problem, but when I had to get up and read in front of everyone.  Well.  I was nervous.  My voice shook.  My hands shook.  I couldn’t look at anyone.  Of course, everyone was kind and told me I did fine, but I felt ridiculous as I walked away from the podium.

Today, I have to make a 5-minute speech.  We were told it can be about anything we like.  I chose New York.  Because, well, it’s the greatest city on earth (that I’ve been to) and I love it there.  Am planning my third trip. 

So, anyway I practiced my speech in front of my roommates last night.  Apparently I say um and and a lot.  Also I bob and weave.  Looks like I’m trying to dodge a fight.  The first time I did it, it took me 10 minutes.  Decided that I had to drop a lot of extra detail if I was going to make the 5-minute mark. 

Gave it another go.  Got it down to exactly 5 minutes, but still too many ums and ands.  Tried concentrating on standing still, but then I felt like a total knob.  Maybe I’ll just try swaying.  Oh, another thing I do, I wave my hands around.  But I think that could be a good thing.  Distract people from the panic-stricken look on my face.

On my walk this morning I gave myself a pep-talk.  This is not life and death.  This is just a short speech in front of people who will treat me kindly.  I’m third to go this morning, so I’ll be getting it over with quickly.  Once it’s done, it’s done.  I can move on and put it behind me.

I love to write.  I think I wrote a very good speech.  It’s the speaking part that terrifies me.  But, I can fake the confidence I need.  I know I can. 

And you know what else is really lovely about this place?  There are horses out behind the residences where I’m staying.  And they have foals.  New ones.  There are even a couple of sets of twins.  I watched them playing in their pens beside their dams this morning. 

God, they are the sweetest little things with long, gambly legs and their soft twitchy noses.  They were calling out to one another, but because they’re separated by fences the most they can do is bump noses before leaping away and kicking their little heels in the air. 

Meanwhile, moms are standing eyeing me like I’m some sort of predator.  With a soft nicker they’d summon their young back to their side.  They’d come, reluctantly, and mom would give them a reassuring touch, but the babies would toss their little heads in impatience and leap away. 

Hopefully, later, during a break I’ll be able to get back over to the pens when staff are present and get up close and personal with a couple of these little beauties.