Rainwater Rambling Archive

On The Road Again

Spent the week in the Kapuskasing area this week. Heading back to Toronto, spending the night in Kirkland Lake before heading back to Toronto. Put some photos on the work blog.

Final trip...this fiscal year

Making the final work trip of the fiscal year (ends March 31). I was up in the Pembroke area to visit our site at the Chalk River Laboratories. This was in the news back in December, due to the reactor shutdown and the subsequent shortage of medical isotopes. I drove back in the snowstorm Wednesday morning.

New Fiscal Year

With the start of a new fiscal year on April 1, my travel schedule has already started to fill in. Last week I was up on Manitoulin Island and the North Bay area for a few days. This week I was down in the London area for a couple of days. I should be busy over the next couple of months.

Down East

I'm down in Nova Scotia this week, the start of a busy summer at work. Follow along at From Here To There. **Note: Updated a few more days

Out East Again

I was in Longue-Pointe-De-Mingan from the 24th-28th, making a site visit. It was my first time to the site. See some of the photos of the area at my work blog From Here To There.

Bettles or Bust

One of the perks of my job is being able to travel around the country and see places I probably would never have the desire or the reason to visit. But the odd time a trip will present itself that makes me say "cool". I am going to Alaska next week to help one of the American programs do a site installation. Before the end of this year I will be doing similar installations at two of sites in Canada. The site is in Bettles, Alaska (Population 43). Here is a map showing the location of Bettles.

I will be updating the work blog when an internet connection is available. The lodge in Bettles advertises that they have wireless internet, so we'll see.

Made it back from Bettles

I made it back from Alaska yesterday night. It was a great trip and quite the experience. I have updated the work blog with photos from the week. I would definitely go back one day. Click on the photo or here to read From Here to There.

Living Out Of My Suitcase

I'll be living out of my suitcase for the next little while. I am back on the road this month. Among the places I've been or are heading to are Lac Edouard, QC; Madison, Wisconsin and Regina, SK. I was in Lac Edouard this past week and had an encounter with a moose. See the work blog "From Here To There" to read all about it.

Madison, Wisconsin

I was down in Madison, Wisconsin this past week for meetings and a scientific symposium. Not for the political rally. Check out the work blog.

Easy to draw, hard to spell

I was out in Saskatchewan this past week, my final trip for at least a few weeks. The weather was good, no snow like they got Thanksgiving weekend. Check out the photos on the work blog.

Updated From Here To There

I finally updated the work blog. I added my trips to Longue-Point-de-Mingan, Experimental Lakes Area, Regina, and Esther. I still have a couple of trips before the end of March, one to Happy Valley-Goose Bay in Newfoundland and State College, Pennsylvania.

Goose Bay

I was in Goose Bay, Labrador this week for a few days. There was so much snow, people had mini ski slopes on their front lawns. See my work blog for the photos.

Blog Hiatus

I'm heading back out to BC today for work, I'll be in Richmond for a couple of days and then going to Saturna Island for the remainder of the week. My Chloe updates will be back next week. I'll try and update the work blog which I have neglected over the past few months. IF I get it updated, I'll post the link here. Have a good week.

Tennessee Titans

I haven't updated the work blog since the spring, but after I catch up with this one, I'll get working on it. This week I went down to Nashville, Tennessee for an EPA conference on Ambient Air Monitoring. There were three of us from work who went down. We made plans to go down early on Sunday and catch the Tennessee Titans football game. The were 0-6 before the game and the last game they lost 59-0. Here is downtown Nashville.

The LP Field stadium.

We bought tickets off the internet before heading down.

Before the opening kickoff, three paratroopers landed in the stadium.

It was my first NFL game and according to one of the guys I was with, it was pretty tame compared to a Bills home game.

It must have been us because the Titans won their first game of the season. They have since gone on to win three in a row.

The Nashville skyline at night.

Gaylord Opryland

The conference was at the Gaylord Opryland Resort and Conference Centre. The place was ginormous, on the shuttle from the airport, the driver said they give you a map when you check-in and warned us not to lose the map. Even with the map, finding my room was a challenge. It is the largest non-casino hotel in the world. There are 2800 plus rooms.

There are numerous restaurants and bars within the complex. This restaurant revolves.

There are a couple of atriums and a quarter mile artificial river. When it was christened, water samples from more than 1,700 rivers throughout the world, including every registered river in the United States, were poured into the Delta River.

As you can see the river isn't that deep.

They were setting up for thei Country Christmas which runs from November 20-January 2. They claim that they start decorating for the Country Christmas in the second week of July. Here they were setting up a giant Christmas tree.

Later in the day when I walked by they had the lights on, but it looks like a couple of strands didn't work.

Outside they go all out with the Christmas lights. Each of the branches on these trees had lights wrapped on them.

There is Christmas stuff all over the hotel.

The shuttle back to the airport.

Final Trip?

What should be my final trip before the end of the year starts tomorrow for four days. I'm heading to Chapais, Quebec up near Chibougamou. I'm flying to Montreal, then to Val D'or and then it is another 4.5 hour drive to Chapais. The weather is suppose to be good and the operator has said there isn't too much snow on the ground. This trip gets me to Prestige Aeroplan status, but I fell short of the Elite status.

The Rock in February and Happy to Be Off!

I spent the first week of the Olympics in Stephenville Newfoundland. It was bad enough trying to stay awake in Mississauga with the 3 hour time difference, try the 4.5 hour difference. Suprisingly, the winter out there has been similar to ours, a little bit more snow, but not as much as usual.

I was scheduled to be back early Friday morning, things were going to plan, settled into my priority seat. There were electrical problems with the system, so they tried the Airbus equivalent of the Ctrl-Alt-Del. After a few attempts, they announced the flight was cancelled. When they cancel a flight due to plane problems in Toronto, they just shuffle things around and voila, a new plane, you're good to go. In Deer Lake, when they cancel a direct flight back to Toronto on an Airbus 319, you're pretty much screwed as there are no other planes.

Eventually they re-booked us on a 12:15 pm flight to Toronto, not bad, only about six hours to wait. Through the morning, things got worse, 12:15 turned into 13:00, than 14:00, then 14:45 and finally 15:15.

There was some consolation when they announced over the PA that the plane had left Montreal. The ground technician covering up the engines, as they were expecting some weather to pass through.

It was almost 12 hours later than my original arrival time, but it was good to be home. A lot of people on the flight were going to destinations beyond Toronto, so they were scrambling to rebook their connecting flights. Many were going to the Olympics and down south. When the second plane arrived, it was starting to look like Pearson.

Chapman's Rising From the Ashes

This week I was out near Chatsworth for work, we are installing a new monitoring site at the Kinghurst Nature Reserve.

On the way back I went through Markdale, home of Chapman's Ice Cream. Last fall they suffered a fire which destroyed their main production plant. Here's what's the Chapman's plant looked like in July 2007 when we went to the Markdale Ice Cream Festival.

This is what's left of it.

They are building a new plant in Markdale, currently they have a temporary mini-plant operating. So far we haven't had any problems getting ice cream at our local Superstore. They had a good supply in their distribution centre before the fire to carry them through until they started the mini-plant.

This picture is from their website. Imagines rows and rows of ice cream.

Penn State Site Visit

I was down in State College, Pennsylvania this week for work. University Park is an unincorporated community that sits within the borough of State College. Most of Penn State University is in University Park.

We have a monitoring site at Penn State University. I'm suppose to go down twice a year to inspect the site, but usually my schedule only allows for one trip. The site itself is about 7 miles out of town on Pennsylvania Game Commision land. A couple of miles from the site is a shooting range, I drove by it this time, and it's just bizarre seeing this shooting range with targets set up and people firing their handguns.

State College is the main campus for Penn State. Beaver Stadium is home to the Big Ten Conference Nittany Lions.

This was my ride down. With the government logos on the side of the car and my government passport, it makes for easier border crossings.

But it doesn't make the lines any shorter.

Amphibian and Reptile Ramble

I have been spending a lot of time out near Owen Sound for work lately. We are starting a new precipitation monitoring site at the Kinghurst Nature Reserve near Chatsworth. The property is owned by Ontario Nature and this weekend they were having an amphibian and reptile count. As part of our outreach program, I was there to give a demonstration of our equipment and talk about why we are there and what we do. Here I am with the Mark Carabetta, Conservation Science Manager for Ontario Nature waiting for some rain. It turns out his wife works at the ROM with Mom and Dad's old next door neighbour.

Afterwards I joined the group and went looking for Reptiles and amphibians. One of the Ontario Nature people is currently working on the Ontario Reptile and Amphibian Atlas. Joe Crowley is a wealth of information when it come to snakes and frogs. Here he is with a garter snake.

I spotted a water snake in the water and next thing you know he was in the water catching the snake.

Note the wet sleeve.

This little girl wanted to hold every snake they caught.

Here is a Ribbon Snake having a little swim.

A bigger Water snake, there were lots of Garter, Water and Ribbon snakes around the water's edge.

The Nature Reserve has a large wetland area and one of the more impressive old growth forests in Ontario.

There were also lots of leopard frogs in the grass.

And some Green Frogs.

This was a Pickerel Frog.

Here is a small Red-bellied snake.

Most of the people there were birders and knew all the calls of the birds.

Some lichen in full bloom.

Another ribbon snake. The cloudy eyes indicate that it will shed its skin soon.

Part of the property is an old farmstead, there is still a well on the site. Mark said if you pump it long enough the water will come.

One last leopard frog before I left for home. The rest of the group were going to look for salamanders and more snakes. They were camping at a nearby conservation area and then they were coming back on the Sunday.