Mark and I went to the Ice Sculpture contest in Old Strathcona on a very cold day. it was -9 degrees as a high. We bundled up, put some hot chocolate in a thermos and drove down to Old Strathcona on Whyte Ave. It was still snowing on this Sunday afternoon. Yesterday would have been a better day to go, but Future Shop had to fix my car. I will post about that another day (electric car starter, don't get me started!) The roads were icy and snow packed and we had to drive slow. Figuring the quickest way to get to Whyte Ave from our house is always tricky also. There is no good way to get there. So, we went Whitemud to Calgary Trail down to Whyte Ave, kind of a roundabout way, but to get over "the river" that is kind of what you have to do.
Because it has been soooo cold, they say the sculptures have loved it because they have been able to do delicate work. The sculptures were thinner and smaller than what I expected. When we went to Breckenridge many, many years ago, for Byron's 2nd or 3rd birthday, they were large and you were able to walk in them and touch them and sit in them. These were all roped off. I wish they would have someone going around also and brushing the fallen snow off of them as it deterred from the sculpture, but that would have been an endless job.
They were beautiful and my favorite was labeled Woman in the Mirror. There was also a Warriors Fighting one that came in close second.
We had keep moving to stay warm. I had a very fun day. A day where I could act like a kid, which I haven't done in a very long time. I made a snow angel and made Mark go down the ice slide with me. We tried to race, but for some reason, he didn't go the same time I did. Letting our toes un-thaw is the worst. We let them un-thaw in the tents they had. That is where a woman from the Chinese Center told me she thought I was born in the year of the Tiger and Mark was the year of the Mouse. I was surprised they didn't have a calendar readily available so we could look it up. (That is the librarian in me!) So when we came home we looked it up. I am a Dragon and Mark is a Rat. We are very compatible, probably the most compatible as you can get. SURPRISE!.
We didn't warm up enough, so of course we had to stop by a Starbucks, yes Starbucks, not Tim Hortons, and get a Chai. Then came home and made home-made fajitas from Steele's Market Cookbook (a little taste of Fort Collins Colorado).
We also went to the Calgary Tower, which has a rotating restaurant at the top, but we had already eaten, so we just enjoyed the view. We visited the BBB people who were holding a job fair and of course visited the site where the BBB store will be. Somehow, no matter where we drove, we always ended up back downtown, so I guess all roads end up downtown in Calgary. Next trip will include a drive over to Banff which is about an hour away and includes Lake Louise and is BEAUTIFUL!
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This gives you a good idea of what the forests in Canada look like, thick and a lot of underbrush!
