August 7th contained a lot of driving. Those Johnston Kids woke surprisingly early for a change, not that it helped us get moving any faster. I want to involve them in setting and packing up camp, so they have their own tasks. They don’t always (ever) work on the same schedule that I do though. I could do their work and my own quicker than waiting for them to finish, but I think it’s important that they have a non-trivial role. By the time they had finished, we were as late getting on the road as we always are, but we’re on vacation!

I never met my father and none of the partners my mother had when I was young stepped into the role. I don’t miss having a father figure at all, but lacking a model I’m really just making up this parenting thing as I go along. I fear that I’m making a botch of it. I just pray that I’m not doing so much damage that they won’t be able to recover when they’re older. They need to know that I love them, even when I’m a terrible father.

Else who will care for me in my dotage?

Breakfast was granola with the last of our blueberries, and warm fry bread made with the last of our buttermilk. Baby Girl wants to post instructions for making fry bread, so stay tuned.

Once breakfast was done, and the interminable process of cleaning the dishes was done, we packed up and went downtown. If you’ve been a faithful reader, you remember that this where we left our backpack almost a month ago, and it was waiting for us at the Lost and Found. We fairly skipped along to the Riding Mountain Visitor Centre.

Our story had gained some notoriety. The young lady at the counter remarked, “I heard about your pack. You went out west, right?” It was all very exciting. She went into the back for a while and came out with our bag! After offering our profuse thanks, we immediately tore into it, looking for Baby Girl’s camera, which was all we really wanted to recover. Getting my swimsuit back was okay too, but on the other hand, I’ve also enjoyed skinny dipping across the country.

Swaggering back to the car, we wondered what we might do next. Horseback riding was an option, but the sky was dark and ominous. I didn’t think they would even start a trail ride under the threat of imminent rain. Just then, as we debated, we saw a trio of kids go by on recumbent tricycles. Short Pants said he had seen where they were for rent and voted we do that instead, rain or no rain. Done. Anything to get them moving.

The bike rental owners also ran the town gas bar. They were affable and chatty, as it wasn’t a busy time of day. We secured the trikes and set out for a fun ride.

The vehicles were interesting as there was no steering, per se. The single front wheel was pedalled as on a regular pre-school trike, but the wheel tilted from side to side to steer, rather than rotating about a steering head. The seat was only a few inches off the ground between all the wheels, so it was extremely stable. Once the kids had figured out how to tilt to steer, they were off down the road. We rode over to the campground where there were far fewer and slower cars and spent an hour going up and down hills. Baby Girl wants her next bike to be a recumbent. Me too!

We left town after turning in our rides. The itinerary had originally called for us to spend the night in Winnipeg, but the city wasn’t far and we decided that we wanted to get closer to home. We set our course for Eagle Dog Tooth Provincial Park, east of Winnipeg. The 5 and a half hour drive was made even longer by the hellish amount of road work in and around Winnipeg.

We never did find the Park. Around 11 PM, we came to a service vehicle turnaround that Google claimed was the park, but was clearly not an entrance. Rushing River Provincial Park was about 10 kilometres away, so we just went there instead.

Arriving in a park after hours is like entering a stranger’s home by the window in the middle of the night. We didn’t know where anything was and crept around with our trailer looking for an empty spot. We weren’t fussy. Baby Girl was up and manically energetic, but Short Pants was out cold in the back. I just wanted to park and get them to bed. I shoehorned the trailer into the first open site we saw. The site entrance was closet-sized and a challenge to back into, so the neighbours came to watch my efforts after 7 or 8 back and forths. With their helpful navigation I was able to pilot our craft into port.

We fell into bed as quickly as I could pop the tent. We were road weary and homesick and sought the comfort of our familiar sleeping bags.

While Those Johnston Kids slept their way into August 6th, I woke up early to put change into the parking meter. The parking lot at the Holiday Inn Express in Regina could not accommodate our car and trailer, so I had to park on the street. It was raining cats and dogs when I went out. I had almost forgotten what rain was like. I tried to get back to sleep after buying time, but that never works for me. When I’m up, I’m up. Eventually the kids began to rustle the covers and I enticed them out of their blanket den like baby bears with the lure of the complimentary breakfast buffet.

I offered them two attractions in Regina, the Science Centre, or the RCMP museum. I was not displeased when they chose the Science Centre, and not only because science totally effing rocks and they will be scientists themselves soon. After the visit to Fort Walsh, I had had my fill of RCMP-flavoured jingoism and lopsided history lessons. I don’t think I could have handled any more tales of how the stalwart men of the Force had made Canada’s wild frontiers livable for civilised folk.

The Regina Science Centre was free, courtesy once again of our Ontario Science Centre membership. We paid a little extra for an IMAX film about the West Papua sea life, narrated by Cate Blanchett. The other IMAX option was a film about polar bears and the Arctic, narrated by Meryl Streep. I am not making this up. I would love a film about southern Africa narrated by Leonardo DiCaprio in the accent he did for Blood Diamond, but his career would have to dry up a little before he could get science centre films. Maybe Danny DeVito.

Every display was interactive in some way, which is great for kids. On the other hand, a lot of good science theory was omitted to make the displays more accessible. In the balance between information and entertainment, I think they’ve leaned a bit too much towards the latter. The kids – all of them, not just mine -tended to run up to a display and immediately start wrenching knobs and mashing buttons to make something happen. I didn’t once see a kid read the sign board. I suppose that’s why scientists are so few in number in our society. The inherent curiosity of the scientist is rarely cultivated. Wondering what’s on television next does not qualify.

The other complaint I have about the Centre is that the industry sponsors are far too apparent, both in signage and content. The agro business sponsored displays that encouraged kids to cut corners and use chemical fertilisers to increase yield when farming. More natural methods were discouraged as being low yield, and there was little to no discussion of environmental impacts of factory farming.

The energy sector was represented as well, teaching that coal and oil were reliable and cost effective, even though they produce pollutants. Wind and solar were dismissed as being unreliable and expensive. They even had a sick little survey that asked kids if they believed in climate change, whether it would be good for Canada, and if the government should do anything about it. This pretends that climate change is both a scientific debate and an issue subject to public whim. It is neither. Climate change is an undeniable fact, and potential solutions cannot be left to political convenience or popular opinion.

Worst of all, the nuclear industry sponsored a large walk-in display that extolled the virtues and safety of nuclear materials and power. According to them, spent fuel rods from reactors can just be stored until their radioactive emissions reduce to safer levels. They did not also say that the half-life of fissionable material – the time it takes for it to be half as lethal – is about 25000 years. So, you know, we’ll just store it until then. No problem.

There was nothing more we wanted to do in Regina, so we looked eastward again, to Riding Mountain National Park and the beach town of Wasagaming. It was a 4 hour drive, but Those Johnston Kids dozed on and off, it rained on and off, and we talked most of the way.

Just over the border into Manitoba, I saw a baby black bear hustle across the road into a stand of trees. At first I thought it was a dog, but as it ran across the ditch we came closer and I got a better look. Those Johnston Kids missed it, but it was real, I swear. Black as coal and breathing fire, with blood-red eyes that shone in the dusk.

Despite taking the ‘scenic route’ the bear was about all I/we saw on our way to the Park – except for bugs. Baby Girl thought it was raining at first, from the pattering on the car, and opened her window to feel it on her hand. By the time we arrived, the car was caked with bug protein. We could scrape it off with a spatula and spread it on toast, but we’re gluten free.

I forgot to mention. Short Pants lost another tooth last Wednesday. When he told me it was loose, I asked him to show it to me. “Don’t pull it out,” he pleaded, and opened his mouth.

“Don’t pull out this one?” I replied, showing him the tooth I had just pulled out.

Baby Girl also lost a tooth last week. “Papa,” she said, “my tooth feels funny.”

“That’s because it’s not there,” I answered. Somewhere between the start of dinner and the end, she had swallowed it. At first I told her that she would have to wait and – ahem – recover the tooth before it could be left for the Tooth Fairy, but I relented after she wrote a sweet and apologetic letter to the enamel fetishist.

I’m just trying to get them home with a few teeth left. I didn’t pack enough straws.

We left Reesor Lake Campground on the 5th, heading east across the Cypress Hills. I had no cell signal, so Google Maps was out, and our tattered paper map didn’t have enough detail. The Cypress Hills Interprovincial Park was just a green blot. Our destination was Fort Walsh, on the Saskatchewan side of the park. I just reasoned that there must be a road through the middle, even if I didn’t know exactly where it was. When I expressed my concerns to Those Johnston Kids, Baby Girl remarked, “I like getting lost.” I concur.

In any case, it didn’t last long. We found a sign pointing to Fort Walsh about 200 metres after we left the campground. That hardly lessened the adventure of it though. Try to imagine it: navigating by paper map and road signs. Crazy, right?

It was actually a pretty drive through the park. The road was windy and the hills scenic. Most of the park is being ranched, as far as I could tell. At least there were cattle everywhere and they didn’t look like the wild kind. We chatted to pass the time.

Fort Walsh is an historic site that is staffed with costumed period interpreters – people who dress and act like the inhabitants during the time of interest. The site was the scene of the Cypress Hills Massacre in 1873, when a group of American and Canadian hunters in pursuit of horse thieves massacred an innocent Assiniboine village. Between 20 and 100 men, women, and children were killed, depending on who’s account you believe. When Ottawa found out later in the year, it put pressure on the Canadian government to enforce law and order in the region. The crime was one of the initiatives behind the creation of the North West Mounted Police, the precursor to the RCMP. The other was the arrival of Sitting Bull and his Lakota Sioux in the area in 1876. They were fleeing retaliation from the American military after wiping out Custer and his army at the battle of the Little Big Horn. The government established Fort Walsh and made it the headquarters of the NWMP from 1878 to 1882.

My appreciation of Fort Walsh is limited, simply because of the history. The RCMP had 3 primary goals: establish law and order in the Canadian western frontier; convince the natives to give up their land and move to reservations; and assimilate natives into the general population. The first goal is laudable, in the wake of the Cypress Hills Massacre, but the other two are anathema. The perverse revisionist logic is that reservations and assimilation were necessary as the bison were all but exterminated in Canada, ignoring the fact that it was Canadians that did the exterminating. We toured the fort, but didn’t take part in the Mountie make-believe they had set up for child visitors. There was no troublesome-Indian make-believe for us to join either, although we did cast dark looks at the walls from the outside.

Honestly, relative to other historical recreations we’ve visited like Louisburg, Nova Scotia, or the Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Village, near Edmonton, it was pretty lifeless. On a high note, they had a 4 month old calf, Molly, grazing around inside the fort. She was extremely gentle and seemed to enjoy the attention of kids. She was also ready for her bottle when we went over to say hello. Molly sucked on my finger like a pacifier until one of the staff showed up with a giant baby bottle. Calves have great sucking power and rough tongues. Baby Girl fed the calf for a little bit, then lost interest and passed the bottle to another swooning little girl.

Anxious to ‘cover some ground’, as Baby Girl put it, we drove pretty steadily from Fort Walsh to Regina, with brief stops in Swift Current and Moose Jaw for gas and bathroom breaks. I had thought we might stay at Buffalo Pound Provincial Park, but then remembered that we had no clean clothes left and finding a laundromat is never as easy as you might think. I called a couple of hotels in Regina before I hit on a Holiday Inn Express with a laundry and rooms with two queen size beds. WiFi and breakfast included for $132!

We arrived around 9 PM and I held squealing children in the shower until the water going down the drain ran clear again. It took a long time. A little Treehouse on cable, a lot of pizza, and they were out. I folded laundry until midnight.

I will get caught up on pics and links soon, promise!

We started our day on August 4th with an early hike along the Writing-On-Stone Hoodoo Trail. The cloudy sky granted us a reprieve from the previous day’s heat. It was about 24 degrees under a grey sky at 9 AM when we set out. It’s less than 3 kilometres one way, and not challenging, so you wouldn’t expect it to take long. The landscape is so incredible, however, that it’s impossible for kids to rush through it. Places must be explored, secrets discovered.

The kids immediately remarked that the stone formations looked like the houses in a Dr. Seuss book, and its easy to see why. The fantastic swirls of sandstone do seem to be the creations of a light-hearted and whimsical spirit. The Blackfoot say that this is a sacred place, but I can’t believe that Blackfoot children didn’t also just find it cool. Aside from the rattlesnakes and scorpions, and potentially crippling falls, the Seussian formations would make an amazing playground.

Back at camp, we packed up in a leisurely fashion. I stopped to chat with our neighbours. They were a retired couple who had sold their house and moved into a travel bus. Travel buses are the pinnacle of the RV food chain. They don’t get towed, they tow other vehicles. They are the great whites of the road.

Before we left the campground, we stopped in at the office to buy slushies. They had run out of lids for the drinks, but I bought them anyway, rationalizing that we would be careful. Back in the car, Baby Girl juggled her full drink in one hand, while trying to put on her seatbelt with the other. The cup was dangerously close to spilling red sugary liquid all over her, so I took it from her to free her hands and spilled it on myself instead. Then it wasn’t so full and she could take it back while I changed my shirt. My shorts looked like I had had a very bad zipper accident.

We drove on stickily towards Cypress Hills Interprovincial Park, straddling the border of Alberta and Saskatchewan. Thankfully the day was cloudy and cooler than the previous two. In this hot, dry country we were grateful for the lack of sunshine; it made the drive bearable.

In Medicine Hat, besides stopping for gas, we went in search of knives, to replace Baby Girl’s knife, lost on Castle Mountain, and mine, given to Baby Girl to lose on Castle Mountain. We stopped at an outdoor store called Valhalla Pure. I’ve never heard of it, but it seems like a chain. Inside, the impossibly clean and pretty salesperson asked if she could help. She was dressed in a yoga outfit, black pants and light blue tank top, and was snacking discreetly from a baggie of trail mix with not too many Smarties to cross the line into junk food. I asked for her knife selection, suddenly aware that I was wearing three days of beard, my hair was styled by wind and neglect, and half a raspberry slushy decorated the front of my shorts. She was a consummate professional, however, and merely curled her lip in light amusement rather than full-blown mockery. As she rang up our two new knives, I noted that her armpit was shaven smoother than a baby’s cheek. I have been in the wilderness a long time. The bears I run into on the trail are much coarser.

Our next stop was just down the street, at a drugstore post office, where Those Johnston Kids bought stamps for postcards home to Mama. We just missed the mailperson who was emptying the mailbox out front as we were going in to buy stamps. When we told the counterperson inside about the disappointing miss, she literally ran out the back door with our postcards in order to make the rear pick-up. Small-ish town people are great.

Finally, capping our brief visit to Medicine Hat, we paused in a bakery on our way back to the car and bought nanaimo bars for the road. Ironically, I don’t recall buying nanaimo bars in the actual Nanaimo. The medicine hat bars were good though.

Cypress Hills is a big park with many campgrounds, but we settled on Reesor Lake, trailer friendly and set out in the bush, far from any roads or tracks. On our way there, I missed a turn and only discovered the mistake when the next sign was for the border with Montana. I was tempted to go see the Sweetgrass Hills, but we corrected course instead.

Reesor Lake looked magical as we came down the hill from the west and around the end of the lake. The water was calm and dark green in the late afternoon light and pelicans glided across the water stately and aloof. We saw large fish jumping to catch low flying bugs, spreading ripples across the quiet water. We guessed that the fish explained the presence of so many pelicans.

We drove on to the Cypress Hills, Reesor Lake Campground and found an empty spot. Things are a lot calmer out on the road, now that the long weekend is over. Campgrounds are half empty and quiet again. Of course, ours wasn’t for long. Those Johnston Kids discovered that our camp neighbours had two young children as well and we were both across the gravel road from the playground and sward.

I let them work off an afternoon drive’s worth of energy. It involved really disturbing levels of screeching. I would have asked them to tone it down, but the other kids were at about the same volume and none of the other parents seemed concerned.

While they worked out how best to hurt each other, I made fry bread, or bannock, or scone, depending on your custom. Can you believe that I haven’t had a chance until now? The neighbour’s little girl invited herself and her mother over to have some and I was happy to share. Everybody agreed that it was really good and I don’t know how to make just a little.

After dinner we played a card game called Timeline, at Baby Girl’s insistence. It’s a historical game with simple rules. You have a hand of cards, each containing an historical event, with the date on the back. You take turns placing a card down in historical sequence. If you place it incorrectly, you discard the card and take another. The objective is to correctly place all your cards so you have none left. The amusing thing about our game is that I placed my cards as well as I was able, but then she would ask me on her turn where she should place her cards. It gave me lots of opportunity to teach science and history, but it was like I was playing with myself. Typical, really.

On August 3rd, we woke to see the Daisy May Campground in daylight. It was a dense collection of RVs and an attenuated collection of services. Worse, all the services were clustered around the house of the live-in proprietors.

It is easiest to describe what the clientele of Daisy May are not: thin, young, vegetarian, or brown. Even the children were chubby old white people in kid suits. The washrooms were shrines to their self-destructive dietary habits. Seriously, they could have used a fan up in that joint.

On the plus side, they only charged us $25 for the night, because we didn’t get to use the pool.

Despite the shocking rankness of the washrooms, the opportunity for a shower was too good to ignore. We cleaned ourselves up, trying not to get any, you know, air on ourselves.

Our first stop of the day was the World Heritage Site Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump. This was a place where, for thousands of years, the Plains people had hunted bison by stampeding them over a low cliff. They left behind an archaeological treasure trove, revealing the lifestyle and culture of First Nations people pre-contact. Until a few hundred years ago, they didn’t even have horses, so the hunt was conducted entirely on foot. You have to witness the vastness of the prairie to appreciate how incredible that was.

The site has an excellent museum now, explaining what the People believed, how they lived, and the significance of the bison to their existence. The bison was their primary source of food, tools, clothing, fuel, and shelter. It’s difficult for us, with the stunning heterogeneity of our economic system, to comprehend how utterly they depended on this one animal. And how utterly bereft they must have been when bison were eradicated in Canada by the obscene slaughter visited upon them by colonials.

I think Those Johnston Kids found it interesting, but it’s hard to tell. If an attraction isn’t immediately tactile or active, they’re not that effusive about it. But a month later they’ll throw out some odd bit of information about the place that was significant to them. The one thing I am certain captured their interest this time were the bison options in the cafe. We are vegetarians but they wanted to try bison. I would not for a moment allow a fast-food burger or other pedestrian meat, but this was okay with me because it had an important cultural connection.

I was hoping for bison ribs or steak, or even jerky. Unfortunately, the cafe only offered ground up bison in the form of burgers, stew, or chili. We shared a bowl of the chili. Not exactly the profound cultural experience I was hoping for, but they liked it. Baby Girl said that she could live on bison all the time.

I wanted to bring the kids to Head-Smashed-In because it’s a special place. One important thing about is that it’s an Indigenous place being run by Indigenous people. We need more of those in Canada.

It was a hot day, pushing about 32 degrees. I’ve heard Toronto has been seeing higher temperatures, but people in Toronto probably aren’t spending the afternoon in a dark car with no air conditioning. We drove across the dry southern Alberta terrain to Writing-On-Stone Provincial Park, with our tongues hanging out the whole way. We were all wet with sweat when we finally pulled into the campground.

The campground there is a mix of gravel and sand, slightly softened by some thirsty looking cottonwood trees. It’s actually quite nice in an austere sort of way and is situated in the valley of the Milk River, a shallow sandy waterway with a surprisingly strong current. The Milk River is unique in Alberta as being the only river that drains to the south, to the Missouri/Mississippi basin. At the time we cared not a whit for the hydrography of the thing, we just wanted to immerse ourselves in it. Our fervour was dampened by the warning we received at check-in that the water in the river was under an advisory and swimming was at our own risk. We took our risk for a swim. I considered it a teachable moment anyway. How many of you have had to explain faecal coliform bacteria to your kids? We kept our heads and faces out of the water and seem to have survived. Our swim was followed by a good rinse though.

Our relief was temporary as the heat continued through dinner and topless game of SkipBo. Baby Girl won again. She’s turning into a real shark.

We slept on top of our sleeping bags for the first time. Oh, how I longed for the cool nights in the mountains.

August 2nd, I broke one of my vacation rules and woke up the kids early. It was actually 8 AM, which I know is pretty late for you working stiffs, but it seems early when there is no bedtime. They haven’t yet made the connection between a late night and a tired morning.

I had good intentions though. We were going to the Royal Tyrell Museum. As we had passed by the museum the evening before, I had noted the extraordinary number of people still coming and going. I had resolved that we would not join that press, and that meant getting up early to be there for the opening at 9 AM.

We didn’t quite make it, but 9:30 wasn’t bad. There was a short, fast moving line-up and we were inside in 5 minutes. Early in the day the crowds inside weren’t that bad either.

I won’t describe every gallery – although I could – but it is a great museum, and huge. After 4 hours we had seen about a third of the exhibits and hadn’t even gotten to the big creatures yet. When we went out to get our lunch from the car, we were shocked to see a line up to buy tickets that extended 200 metres back to the parking lot. Long weekends suck.

After lunch, I signed the kids over to museum staff who escorted them away on a Jr. Dinosaur Dig experience. That gave me 90 minutes to catch up on the blog and not be responsible for anyone. I might have closed my eyes for 10 minutes. Those Johnston Kids had a great time on the dig apparently. They returned from their hike into the badlands quite excited and sporting complementary museum ball caps. The caps are cool because they can’t be bought, only acquired by taking a tour. Afterwards we went back into the museum for couple of hours more. Then our feet gave out.

The Royal Tyrell Museum is awesome, but I do have a bone to pick about the bison exhibit. The display was quite small, just a diorama of a single bison, with a brief signboard. The sign said that the bison had been essential to Plains First Nations, but had been hunted to the edge of extinction and all but wiped out. That was it. When I asked Short Pants what was wrong with the sign, he replied that it didn’t say that the Americans had killed all the bison. I corrected him on the details, but he had the gist of it. For some reason the internationally respected Tyrell Museum declined to specify that it was the colonial economy and white men’s penchant for grotesquely wasting resources that they naively thought inexhaustible that had caused the bison to be slaughtered indiscriminately. I wonder if the politics of the province had anything to do with the museum’s self-serving lack of clarity.

The scenery in the badlands is so interesting that we considered staying for another night, but the pull of home is stronger. We decided to move on, even if it only brought home a few hours closer.

On our way south out of Drumheller, we stopped for a hike around the hoodoos. The hoodoos are sandstone formations that occur when softer stone is overlaid with a harder stone cap. The hard stone cap erodes slower than the softer underlying stone, leaving a formation that looks like a stone mushroom. You often see something similar in gardens after rain, when pebbles can be found on top of little pillars of dirt.

We looked for fossils that we could not keep, according to Alberta law. We did not find any, a consequence that could be equally attributed to geology or the fact that we have no idea what a fossil in the wild looks like.

We went south because I wanted to stay near Lethbridge, in preparation for the next day’s activity. It was a long drive down through the open prairie again. The prairies are beautiful and fascinating to see, like mountains in negative, but I wouldn’t want to live here. I love trees and rock.

Bonus Trekkie attraction! We stopped in the tiny town of Vulcan to snap photos. I am willing to bet that this town’s name has nothing to do with Star Trek, but that hasn’t stopped them from joining in the fun. They’ve built a 9 metre steel and concrete model of the Enterprise, with welcome messages in Federation Standard English, Vulcan, and Klingon. Best to hedge your bets. The Klingons might eventually get over their fear of Kirk, or stop finding Picard amusing.

We finally pulled into the Daisy May Campground, in Fort McLeod, in the dark, natch. We ate a late dinner of pasta and meatballs, then slept like carb stuffed bears.

I like home design blogs. Mostly for the pictures because, let’s face it, not everyone can write (unless we’re talking about my niece Phoebe’s blog) and home decorating isn’t the most compelling topic. At the same time, it’s a little like punishment because our house will never look like the ones in the picture. First, we don’t have an unlimited budget (despite what Those Johnston Kids think!). Second, we’d rather spend our limited budget on doing stuff rather than buying stuff (http://thosejohnstonkids.ca/wp/index.php/2015/07/24/call-me-ishmael/). Third, I don’t think people actually live in the rooms they show on the blogs. Really. Or if they do, they don’t have children or a dog or three cats. Or me. One consequence of living on my own this summer is that I’ve come to realize that it’s not just the kids who never put anything back where they found it.

However, another consequence of living on my own is that I have time on my hands. Which brings us back to home decorating. I still don’t have a budget, but I have time and little else to focus on other than my adoring dog.

Naturally, the long weekend seemed like the perfect time to start. Before he left, Michael removed part of the wall between the kitchen and dining room and dry walled and primed it. I painted the dining room before I headed west, but I still need to finish the kitchen.

Day 1 – Saturday

My to do list was actually pretty simple:

1. Grocery shopping (the cats were yelling at me for food)
2. Home depot (new knobs for the cabinets)
3. Clean the cabinets & replace the knobs and prep the room for painting

Number 1 & 2 were pretty easy, both are within biking distance. Number 3 proved to be the most challenging. Our house was built in 1963 and we bought it from the original owner. The cupboards are a mix of wood and veneer and were probably part of renovation project sometime in the 70’s. The cupboard doors are wood – covered in about 30 years of grease and dirt. I managed to clean four of them before I needed a break. So I made brownies and watched a movie.

I call that a productive day.

Day 2 – Sunday

My to do list was deceptively short – clean the cabinets, replace the knobs and prep/paint. How hard could it be?

I don’t remember what I did all day, to be honest.  Alison came over in the afternoon and we went to Home Depot (I saw a range hood on sale the day before that wouldn’t fit in my pack). Naturally, that had to be installed even though it wasn’t on the list. It’s a relatively simple process to replace an existing range hood, although it involved a number of trips up and down the stairs from the fuse box to the kitchen to see if I’d flipped the right switch. As it turned out, switch #14 met with success – I wouldn’t electrocute myself. Yay!

Installation complete, I finished cleaning the cabinets and changing the knobs. All of them but ONE. The previous owner of our house, Jim, did a lot of his own home renovations. Generally, this hasn’t turned out well. We’ve discovered joists that have been cut and left unsupported, walls repaired with wood and cardboard and a LOT of plaster, and dishwasher wires running through the ceiling to the basement to plug into a socket. However, he also left us a 70’s orange velour furniture set so I guess you take the bad with the good.

He also had a thing about installing stuff so that it can NEVER be removed. As it turns out, he added a towel rack on the cupboard door. To ensure the screws attaching the rack didn’t poke through the door, he added a piece of wood. He attached this wood over the screws that hold the knob on so you can’t remove the knob without removing the wood. Only I can’t remove the wood because it’s attached with some sort of industrial cement.

I don’t have OCD – but this really bothers me.

Day 3 – Monday

My to do list was now down to painting. Alison offered to come over and help. After a quick change into some of Michael’s nicest clothes, she took over painting the small front foyer, while I did two walls of the kitchen. Two coats were up in no time – as Michael will tell you, Alison and I are speedy, if somewhat lackadaisical, painters. Naturally, we had to go for ice cream.

After Alison left, I stayed up late to finish the painting because we Johnstons are eschewing bedtimes this summer!

And this is what my redecorated kitchen looks like now…

I may need to tidy up a bit before I submit this to Houzz. I can’t find the brownies.

I keep forgetting that it’s a long weekend. The line of vehicles waiting to get into Banff on Saturday was kilometres long, with more piling up behind. It was a constant stream of vehicles from Calgary. We could have told them that there was no room.

There are giant RVs everywhere, jockeying for position like land whales. I feel like a nimble porpoise pulling the trailer.

We had hoped to rise early and drive out to Johnston Canyon for a hike before the crowds, but it wasn’t to be. Those Johnston Kids had stayed up late watching the old (bad) version of The Fantastic Four and consequently slept in. I did not sleep in, or at all, as Alison had taken the bedroom, and the kids the Murphy bed, leaving me with the scratchy 5 foot sofa and a blanket.

After a hearty breakfast of blueberry pancakes, Alison took Baby Girl and Short Pants to the hotel’s Playzone, an indoor climbing playground. In the resulting quiet time, I packed the car and made ready to leave.

We hadn’t actually seen anything of Banff except the hotel so far, so we walked downtown to browse the shops and mail a postcard home. I don’t think we came away with anything except candy. Banff has great candy stores. The main street was dense with tourists and the day was heating up quickly, so we didn’t stay long, but Banff is worthy of a week’s stay. Maybe later in the year when it’s cooler.

Well then it was just a run for the Calgary airport to drop off Alison for her flight home. She was also taking Short Pants’ bicycle, which had been rendered extraneous by the loss of our other bikes in Vancouver, the City of Thieves. Unfortunately, she was just a bit too late for her flight, so they bumped her to the next. That gave us time for lunch anyway. We went to Kelsey’s, where our Asian waiter pronounced ‘Thai’ like ‘thigh’ and could not distinguish fusilli from penne. The food was otherwise okay.

Those Johnston Kids and I, on our own again, had an enjoyable drive to the town of Drumheller, in the badlands of Alberta. We were early for a change! I took the rare opportunity to just do nothing for a bit, while the kids made friends with children from a neighbouring campsite. We had a late dinner of spicy KD and hit the hay.