From Here To There... Archive

Back on the Road...

My travels have started. I managed to stay home for the month of September, but starting today, I will be on the road through the week quite a bit. My first trip was to Lac Edouard, Quebec. It is about three hours north of Trois-Rivieres.

It was an interesting drive, I managed to hit a moose head on and walk away unscathed. The road was hilly and as we came over the top of one of the crests, there was a moose on the right side of the road and another one straddling the centre line. I saw the one on the side first and then his buddy on the road. I hit the brakes and took out his legs and it rolled onto the hood and slammed into the windshield. The car stopped and he rolled off and then he got up on all fours and walked into the bush. We were lucky the car had a low profile and that it was a juvenile moose with no antlers, otherwise it may have been another ending. Here are some photos of the car.

The body landed on the drivers side and the head slammed the passenger side.

There was some damage to the front quarter panel.

The worst was the windshield, with some help from the locals where we were staying, we were able to get the windshield repaired, otherwise the rest of the vehicle was driveable. 

The auto shop that repaired the windshield, provided a rental vehicle. A Dodge Ram 1500 5.7 HEMI, not the most environmentally friendly vehicle.

Domaine Lac Edouard

We were staying at Domaine Lac Edouard, it is about 18km from where our site is located. The lodge sits on the lake which is quite large. In the early morning it was very peaceful, not such a bad thing after hitting a moose.

The lodge.

Heading back

Drove back as far as Montreal tonight after picking up our vehicle around 4:30pm. In the end things worked out well, we were fortunate to have some of our Quebec Region guys who we were meeting. They were able to help us around the language barrier and speed things up for the repairs. The hotel tonight is in Pointe-Claire, here's a photo of the Autoroute 40 from my window.

The Dairy State

I'm down in Madison Wisconsin this week for the National Atmospheric Deposition Program annual meeting and scientific symposium. The hotel/meeting area is next door to the state capital. In the afternoon there was a rally over at the capital, when I walked over it turned out to be a Barack Obama rally and the key speaker was John Kerry, one of of the early runners for the Democratic presidential ticket.

At this point I could hear the speakers but I wasn't sure who was speaking. Other than the Obama/Biden and McCain/Palin ther was no indication who was going to speak.

The view of the State Capital building.

I think my camera is on it's last legs, while I was taking pictures it started going screwy. It looks cool, but it isn't suppose to look like that.

It turned out it was a Obama/Biden rally to get people out to vote early. John Kerry spoke for about 15 minutes, in 2004 when he spoke here he had Bruce Springsteen with him.

There was a group of McCain supporters trying to drown out the speech.

Some of the people a rally will draw.

I took this guys picture for Angela.

It was interesting standing there watching some American politics on our Election Day.

Third Time Zone...

I'm in my third time zone in three weeks. This week I'm in Regina, will be here all week. The weather should be good for most of the week.

My ride for the week, a Honda CRV, notice how clean it is.

In case you forgot how flat the prairies really are.

The Living Skies

It rained Tuesday morning, and when it rains out here it gets messy. The soil sticks to your shoes and you grow a few inches. We went to Dog River (Rouleau) and had lunch at the Dog River Hotel. Not sure what will happen to Rouleau now that Corner Gas has wrapped up for good. The CRV after traveling the Rouleau road.

A few sunset photos from the site.

Along the RY Trail and Correction Rd.

The land of the living skies.