L2O2

Well, what can you say about Calgary? It’s young, its brash, its vibrant, and just in case you didn’t know, it’s the oil capital of Canada. Thanks to a fifty dollar barrel of oil, and a huge ancient sea that laid down all the right deposits for the formation of coal, oil and natural gas, Calgary and Alberta as a whole, has billions of extra dollars to spend. And spend they do! It was even hard finding a grid road that wasn’t paved. There’s a new men’s shelter downtown that looks like a four star hotel, there’s new construction everywhere and house prices! man you have to making money to be able to afford them. The thing that gets me is there is this prevailing attitude that all of this wealth is for Albertans only. The papers have these headlines all the time stating that the provincial politicians are always on the lookout for Ottawa wanting to grab some of their money. I can’t understand that type of isolationist thinking. They are part of Canada, blessed with abundant fuel and natural resources, so they should share some if not most of it with the rest of the nation that is not so fortunate. After all, if they don’t, everyone will move here and Alberta will be forced to spend and spend and spend to provide the infrastructure for their increasing population. Besides, fossil fuel is on the way out, and you know that old saying, what goes up, must come down and right now Alberta is way up, when it comes down, look out! And that’s it for my editorial of the day.

We have spent a week here camped out at our son and his wife’s house. We can’t believe that it is the second week in October, the weather is so warm, blue sky and sunny days. Michaelea and Jon take us to their favourite restaurant upon our arrival. Our other son, who lives downtown, the trendy guy that he is, has to wait for the next day before he is blessed with our presence. He treats us to a wonderful meal at a Vietnamese restaurant he quite often frequents. Everyone is doing fine. Finally, our jobs are done! The truck gets a new set of tires and the dust we found on that one grid road that wasn’t paved, gets washed off the trailer. We visit Mountain Equipment Co-op and do a little other necessary shopping. If that isn’t enough there is also a little road trip to Bragg Creek and Turner Valley. Then there is Thanksgiving supper squeezed in before our departure on Monday October 11, destination: Banff and Lake Louise. Thanks kids with putting up with the parents for a few days. We apologize to those who we didn’t get to see, we just couldn’t find the time, sorry!