I was down in Nova Scotia for a site visit to Kejimkujik National Park. On the way back to Halifax at the end of the week, stopped in Lunenburg.
The waterfront was getting ready for their annual Christmas Parade.
The Bluenose II getting prepped for winter.
Looking out over Lunenburg Harbour.
A Nova Scotia Christmas tree made from lobster traps.
I spent the week in San Diego, Ca for meetings, flew on Rouge Air for the first time.
The meetings were at the Bahia Resort Hotel.
The weather was good for most of the the week, temperatures were in the mid 20’s.
The Pacific Beach pier.
The view from my hotel room.
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I was up to Wood Buffalo National Park in the Northwest Territories in September. The weather was good, only towards the end of the week did it dip below zero overnight. The first night it was clear and we were able to see some of the aurora borealis.
Not as much wildlife this trip. Only a few bears.
Saw the same bison going to and from the site each day.
Grosbeak Lake. Didn’t have much time, we went after we finished work the last day, and with the days getting shorter, we didn’t get to go all the way out.
Parks Canada was renovating the paths at the Salt Plains Area, so it was closed off. There was still some of the salt flats at Grosbeak.
I was in Happy Valley-Goose Bay, NL this past week. It was a challenge getting there. On Monday I was scheduled to fly Toronto-Ottawa-Halifax to Goose Bay. Problem was I missed my connection in Halifax and ended up in St John’s, NL for the night (without my suitcase and on Air Canada’s dime) before flying from St. John’s to Goose Bay on Tuesday morning. It was a little better on the way back, just a Goose Bay to Halifax to Toronto uneventful flight.
I spent the past week up in Sault Ste. Marie. I was doing work at our site about an hour north east. Weather was pretty good, only one day of rain as we were coming out of the camp, otherwise it was hot and sunny. Stayed at the Delta Hotel downtown right on the river.
There is a boardwalk trail that goes along the waterfront.
All the pollution from the American side of the border makes for a nice sunset.
I spent the week in Louisville, Kentucky for meetings. I flew in on Sunday afternoon via Minneapolis. Louisville is the birthplace of Muhammed Ali.
Louisville has painted horses around the city. It is part of an event called Gallopolooza. In 2004 and 2009 they did horses.
In 2015, they did Bourbon, in the form of Mint Juleps.
The Louisville Bats were playing the Durham Bulls at Louisville Slugger Field. They are the Triple A farm team for the Cincinnati Reds. I bought a ticket for $13.50 two rows behind the dugout.
Their mascot is “Buddy” the Bat.
The game went to extra innings, I moved around to watch from different areas.
The final score was 4-3 Louisville in 14 innings, I only stayed until the 10th.
it was a nice stadium, although the draft beer was $7.60, a little pricey for a minor league park.
On the way back I stopped at the Visitor Centre and saw the Colonel.
A couple of blocks from the hotel was an area called Fourth Street Live, it has a lot of restaurants and bars.
On Monday afternoon, a few of us went to the Louisville Slugger Museum and Factory. There is a 120ft bat out front. It is a replica of Babe Ruth’s 34 inch Louisville Slugger bat.
Ken Griffey Junior.
Babe Ruth.
Ted Williams.
Derek Jeter.
There is a tour that takes you through the factory and it shows the bat making process from billet to lacquered finished product. A display showing how they cut the billets from a tree.
It use to take 30 minutes for someone to make a bat on a lathe. Now they use a CNC machine to make the professional bats in 50 seconds.
There was a special Lego exhibit, called Big Leagues, Little Bricks. Here is a replica of Wrigley Field made from 58,000 bricks.
This is a mural made from Lego bricks. It has the words to “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” spelled out.
Wrigley Field.
There is a signature wall that has all of the players that have signed contracts with the company. Only those that have a contract have their signatures burned onto their bats, other Major Leaguers who only order bats, have their name in block letters. I found early Blue Jays Doug Ault…
…and Rick Bosetti.
At the end of the tour we each got a miniature souvenir bat.
The Kentucky Derby is next weekend, so things will start to get busy this week. I’m pretty sure you won’t be able to get a room for the $134/night I paid this week.
The meeting was at The Brown Hotel, it was opened in 1923, until closing in 1971. In the 80’s it re-opened as a hotel and is now on the National Register of Historic Places.
There was a terrace on the roof that provides a 360 view of the city.
There is a ZeroBus (it is an electric bus) that is free in the downtown core.
Work took me to Florida for the March Break, I flew into Gainesville, FL through Atlanta. A colleague and I were visiting the Amec Foster Wheeler laboratory on the Tuesday. Then it was a drive over to Jacksonville Beach for 2 days of meetings.
It was a cold week in Florida, the temperature never got over 10 degrees C, and the one night they issued a frost warning.
The meetings were at the Courtyard Marriot in Jacksonville Beach.
On Thursday it was back to Gainesville to catch our flight back on Friday morning.
The Hippodrome State Theatre.
Despite the chilly temperatures, it still beat the snowstorm that dumped on Mississauga and the GTA.
I was down in the Eastern Townships this past week, that should be my last trip of the year. It was a wet overcast week.
I was down in Santa Fe, New Mexico this week for meetings.
I left on Halloween and had a challenging time trying to get there. My original flight out of Toronto on American Airlines was cancelled due to mechanical problems. I was able re-book on the noon flight to Dallas and got the last seat on the connection to Santa Fe, although the connection was tight. I was traveling with three colleagues, who ended up having to go through Albuquerque. In the end I made my connection, although their system said I was still in Toronto, and even though I was standing there with a ticket, they were reluctant to let me board.
Santa Fe is the oldest and highest state capital in the USA.
I stayed at the La Fonda on the Plaza Hotel, it sits on the location of various inns since 1609. The current hotel was built in 1922. It sits at the end of the Old Santa Fe Trail.
Just down the street is the Loretto Chapel. It is a former Roman Catholic Church that is now a privately owned museum. It is known for its unusual helix shaped spiral staircase.
When the church was built there was no staircase to the choir loft and the nuns had to use a ladder. The story goes:
“The nuns prayed for St. Joseph’s intercession for nine straight days. On the day after their novena ended a shabby-looking stranger appeared at their door. He told the nuns he would build them a staircase but that he needed total privacy and locked himself in the chapel for three months. He used a small number of primitive tools including a square, a saw and some warm water and constructed a spiral staircase entirely of non-native wood. The identity of the carpenter is not known for as soon as the staircase was finally finished he was gone. Many witnesses, upon seeing the staircase, feel it was constructed by St. Joseph himself, as a miraculous occurrence.”
This was a picture of what the staircase would have looked like originally with no handrails.
Route 66 use to run by the hotel.
Down the road from the hotel was the Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi. It is the mother church of the Archdiocese of Santa Fe.
Across the street is the Museum of Contemporary Native Arts.
A statue of Saint Kateri Tekakwitha (1656–1680) who was the first North American Indian to be beatified, and was canonized in October 2012
The church was built between 1869-86, it was elevated to basilica by Pope Benedict XVI in 2005.
There is a large collection of original art in the hotel, including all the guest rooms.
The Basilica in the late afternoon sun.
A lot of the buildings and houses are Adobe style.
The oldest church structure in the US is in Santa Fe. It is the San Miguel Mission. It was built between 1610-1626. Mass is offered at the church every Sunday.
Across the street is the “Oldest house in the US”, it dates back to 1646.
The back of the San Miguel Mission.
The front of the oldest house.
The weather for the week wasn’t much warmer than Mississauga, but it was sunny every day.
The Loretto Chapel.
The Santa Fe Trail was a 19th-century transportation route through central North America that connected Independence, Missouri with Santa Fe, New Mexico. It was eventually replace by the Santa Fe Railroad in the 1880’s.
There are a lot of shops and art galleries. Santa Fe ranks third in art sales behind New York and LA. There is a street called Canyon Road that has over 100 art galleries.
The hotel was right on the Plaza.
This sculture is called “Not afraid to look” by Charles Rencountre.
In Santa Fe there is a car service called Bolt Ride. The cars are the Tesla Model S. It is pretty cool. We used it to get to the airport on Friday.
The car was driving it itself, and if the driver made a signal change, the car would change lanes on its own.
Our flight out of Santa Fe was delayed 40 minutes, but it was better than the flight before us. Their plane is the one in the picture, the flight out of Dallas had to turn back for a cockpit issue, then once it landed the same problem occurred, so they were trying to repair it. Our plane came in and we departed before theirs. They were close to a 3 hour delay.
The Santa Fe airport is pretty small.
The Dallas to Toronto leg was on time and only half full. Although there was an airfield lighting issue at Pearson, we didn’t experience any delays.
My travel for work has been a little lighter this summer and fall, I was in Sault Ste. Marie for the week doing an installation and training at our site in the Turkey Lakes Watershed, about an hour north of the Soo. I stayed at the Delta Waterfront with a nice view of the St Marys River and the bridge to the US.
The first two days we had rain, before it cleared up towards the end of the week. This is the Chippewa River Falls.
The river crosses under Highway 17.
Wishart Lake, one of the many lakes that the Water Survey monitors.
Batchawana Lake, the fall colours were late this year, they were getting the same hot weather we were getting in the south. Although the hotels were full with the tour buses for the Agawa Canyon train ride.
St Marys River early Friday morning.
