Stampede

We’re parked in one of our regular spots, west of Airdrie in Alison & Camiel’s yard.  We hotfooted it across most of Saskatchewan on Monday, arriving here after 9:00.  We didn’t get out of Buchanan until 10:00 but we had expected to be later.  It turned out that the village office wasn’t open that day, nor either of the next two for that matter, so we couldn’t do any of our business there.  We were able to get a box number – 33 if any of you care. 

We’re here because I’m starting a contract for a company called GrowSafe Systems.  The company is owned by Marilyn’s oldest friend and her husband.  They have some really neat technology that will absolutely revolutionize how the livestock industry works.  They have been working away at developing the technology for over 10 years now and we have been following their progress.  Right now they need some mobile help with U.S. installations and apparently a Canadian can work in the U.S. if everything is done properly.  I’ll believe that when I see it.

This is Stampede week in Calgary.  The Greatest Outdoor Show on Earth is truly that.  We haven’t been to the Stampede for several years now and we probably won’t go to a bunch of it this year either.  Its a huge event for anyone in the livestock industry though so our friends are exhibiting and doing the party circuit.  On Tuesday I’ll be helping set up some of their equipment at the Stampede trade show as part of my training.  After that we’ll likely head toward the border and see how that goes.  Based on our experience last fall showing up at the border and saying “I’m headed into the U.S. to do some work” doesn’t seem like a really smart idea but we’ll give it a whirl and see what happens.

Yesterday Marilyn finally connected with the village administrator and got the straight dope on getting our lawn mowed.  It costs $180 annually and they will mow it as often as it needs to be mowed.  Can’t beat that.  That was always our biggest issue with property ownership – just when the weather turned nice enough to be at the lake was when the damn lawn went into overdrive and needed to be mowed more than once a week.

Last night Camiel and I flew up to Edmonton with another planeload of his buddies for what they called a club meeting but what was really just an excuse to go flying on a gorgeous evening.  We kind of broke the law coming home on a couple of counts.  He isn’t night rated and we ended up landing more than a half hour after sunset.  He also let me fly from the time he cleared Edmonton International airspace until we got back to the Airdrie strip.  Its been close to 30 years since I hung onto the stick in an airplane and it felt pretty good.  I didn’t do much more than keep the wings level but I did get to do our descent to get us under Calgary’s airspace.  Airdrie’s airport is inside the control circle for Calgary but as long as you stay under 4800 feet you don’t have to check in with Calgary control.  The ground level is somewhere around 3500 feet so you are getting down pretty close to the ground in order to stay under the controlled airspace.  All in all its been a pretty wonderful week.