Where is Lotte?: August 2006

Hi everybody,

Here I am finally, with what will be my last post with Canadian pictures and stories... But I hope that's just for the moment, not for the rest of my life! When you wait so long, putting new stuff online, it becomes more and more difficult to keep the number of pictures down. I'll just try to keep the number of words down.
So, I worked at the Unique Stock Farm for a bit more than seven full weeks. Mostly my job was doing milking, with cleaning up after, but I did a lot of other things too. For example when I hurted my wrist, after that I was in charge of the calf feeding. In the, mostly, long lunch breaks I enjoyed my guitar, the surrounding land for walks/runs, my bible or the sun. I had a great time! O, almost forgot to tell you. When I was lucky enough to be done early enough, I was cheering for the Edmonton Oilers!! Too bad they didn't make it.

On Thursday July 6th we (the Morey's, my trailer mate Melissa and I) left for a sale in Red Deer. From there, a nice Swiss couple Jersey farmers, took us home, with their four boys in one truck! (I feel ashamed, because I forgot their names, but I'm sure the farmers among the readers know who I'm talking about!)

The next day I saw the whole, very long, opening parade while I was sitting in the sun all the time... Sweet! Afterworths in a hurry to the Stampede Grounds for the exciting rodeo! You could easily spend two full days at the fair grounds and end up wit an empty wallet! At night, I've seen the Chuckwagon Races, followed by the Biggest Outdoor Show on Earth! With the Young Canadians etc. Incredible to see around 200 kids doing exactly the same thing at exactly the same time. And the fire works; holy moly!! After quite some trouble meeting the right guy at the right place, we drove 'home' to the farm around sun rise. Some sleep, goodbye's and driving later I was at the airport, ready to pick up my parents and sister! It was unbelievable, till they were actually there...
From now on, I'm gonna let the pictures do the talking, I bet you know where to find me if you really want to know what we did, exactly.

One of the weekends I was off, my collegues Frank and Penny took me to Jasper National Park. We did 'some' driving, wildlife viewing and bathing in the hot springs!

Mountain sheep mama & baby and an elk.

Casey and Lee Morey at the 4H-club show. At the right two spoiled barn cats on my bed/couch.

Getting the warm and lazy cows in for their milking a 4.30 pm... What a nice memory.

Those stupid calves only think about one thing, don't they? At the right you see the tie stall part of the barn, you can't see it really good on this picture, but I made it all shine like new again.

The RCMP during the Parade, opening the Calgary Stampede.

On my last night at the Morey's, we had a bonfire with a lot of (burned) marshmallows. Too bad I forgot to take a picture of the rest of the family and staff... The dog is one out of three, this is Rusty; I wish I could give him one more hug.

Backyard of our first campsite, Jasper National Park.

Canoeing at Moraine Lake (freezing!!) and my dad at the Snaring River in Jasper.

Lake Louise. We hiked till a tea house at 2075 m. Beautiful!

Left is Lake Louise, on the right is Moraine Lake and in the middle is my mum, preparing supper. We ate burgers all the time, around every other day! :)

After a hike at Emerald Lake and after a hike to the Inktpots in Banff. At Emerald Lake, we were laying in the sun, but my dad and I went for a walk. When we came back, my mum and sister were in the car and told us they had seen a bear 15 m. away from them.

Dry hills and mountains for a day, towards Whistler (Nairn Falls). I went rafting for one day.

Vancouver Island; the sun, the beach, rain forest and wildlife! One morning we had to get out of our tents, because there was a bear behind it and later my sister saw one walking over the parking lots. And we've seen só many bald eagles... We camped almost under a nest and we saw them catch their fish in the sea!

One day in the last week, we went whale watching with Pipo on a small boat with 500 hp. The trip (and the power of the engines) were awesome! Pipo let both my sister and me drive the boat. Big waves, open sea, dolphins, sea otters and a grey whale! I took this pictures in Vancouver Aquarium, the sea was too rough to take decent pictures there.

Left you see the nicest stuff of Victoria; the surrounding nature! The city itself wasn't too much fun. Right is Vancouver, a nice, pretty city with a cool park.

The last campsite (and our car) and a last look at the Rockies... It hurted to leave Canada behind.