First lake trip for the year

We headed out to the lake in Bonnie & Ken's new Uplander with our friend Genevieve for the first trip of the season to get things all opened up and cleaned out. We're not going to be out at the lake an awful lot this year due to other family things going on (babies!) so we have to make the most of every opportunity.

Riding in the back of the Uplander was very pleasant with the DVD entertainment unit hanging from the roof for us rearward passengers and a separate radio system for those in the front. Of course it's always a more pleasant trip if you're not the one doing the driving so that helped as well :-)

Rest stop at Mt Terry Fox


Photographic proof that the top of Mt Robson does actually exist and is not located in some alternate cloud covered dimension

Once we got to the lake there was work to be done, including dropping two cedar trees to be used as stringers for the new dock walkway. Once Ken had masterfully cut these trees down it was up to Col, Genevieve and I to strip the bark so that they will be able to dry out. A very fun and back breaking job full of bad jokes about who was the best stripper and who could pull the longest strip.

Champion stripper Genevieve


The results of our labours

As usual we had plenty of great food, intriguing card games and lots and lots of relaxing reading time. Lake time is awesome.

Mothers Day

We spent Mothers Day at Mary & Lou's place and Col baked a delicious espresso chocolate cake.


The decorating was a huge hit

First things first

The first thing that I modified on the Mazda6 (the only point of buying a car is to spend hours and hours modifying it isn't it?) was the cargo area which was carpeted and I didn't think it would stand up to the rough treatment that a summer of driving and hauling stuff around would entail. Hence a trip to Canadian Tire to get some rubber matting, a long cramped period of kneeling in the back trimming the stuff with the tin snips and voila! a ruggedized cargo area...


Cargo area for the Mazda6

Catch up time

July 15, 2006
After a lengthy absence from the world of blogging it's time to get caught up and post a few snippets about our adventures this spring and summer. Sorry for the avalanche of stuff but it's becoming increasingly difficult to find the time to sit down and get this all into the computer properly.

Here goes...all the dates have been adjusted to give a rough idea of when stuff happened.

Finally ours

So after waiting four weeks for our new car to make its way from Calgary (not actually there) to the port in Vancouver, to somehwere behind a lot of cars at the port in Vancouver, to a truck on an unspecified date to the dealership we finally got to go and pick up our new Mazda6 Sportwagon GT. A long and gruelling battle to be sure, but one that is worth it for sure. We traded in the little Civic and are now the proud owners of a car that we can rely on to get us out to the lake, that has four doors and you don't have to be from Cirque de Soleil to get into, that makes us very happy drivers, that has a warranty if something goes wrong (knock wood) and that really lives up to the Zoom Zoom tagline.


The ultimate key ceremony

Of course after waiting that long for a car that we were told was just down the highway in Calgary, we were pretty keen to get into it and take it for a spin. Where do all new car owners drive to the first thing? Mundare of course. Home of the world's biggest Ukrainian sausage and the excellent Stawnichy meat processing factory(who make the amazing garlic sausages for which the monument in town was built). It was a great little jaunt up highway 16 to a town that I'd never been to and which turned out to have an excellent bakery that sold vanilla slices, so not only did we come away from Mundare with a lot of processed meat and pictures of the car in front of an infeasibly large sausage, I also got to eat some really good vanilla slice the day I picked up the new car so a happier man I don't think you'd find in Edmonton that day.


A great new wagon in front of the world's biggest Ukrainian sausage


Just hanging out in the carpark in Mundare - looking spectacular

This of course means that there will likely be a few more pictures of the new family member as we get to know it a little better (and possibly even give it a name and gender). I don't know about you, but I'm excited! Zoom Zoom Zoom!

Repairs

A few weeks ago we took our first trip out to the cabin for the season to open it up and make sure that nothing had gone drastically wrong over the winter - and by drastically wrong I mean a bear deciding to take up residence in the living room or something equally horrible. Having heard from the neighbours who had been out the week before that the ramp had broken on the dock we knew that we were going to be doing at least some repair work, but not really how much. About a fortnight before we arrived there had apparently been an enormous storm that lashed the lake and it was probably this along with the low water levels grounding one end of the dock that contributed to the rod breaking that the ramp pivots on. There should be a threaded rod between the ends of those two stringers that the ramp rests on


Busted ramp


Here's what's left of the rod

The huge storm also contributed to 17 log booms breaking up and down the lake which meant dozens and dozens of floating logs, making lake navigation interesting to say the least.


The prevailing winds mean that most of them end up lodged against our dock

So a lot of the time was spent moving floating logs with a pike from where they were bumping into the dock to another spot down the beach where they wouldn't cause any damage. Thankfully we were able to find some iron bar at a local welder near Barriere and this allowed us to make a temporary fix for the end of the ramp. The only problem then remaining was how to actually lift the stupid thing up and put it in place, keeping in mind that it must weigh something in the order of 3-400kgs. Needless to say, plenty of pulley systems, leverage and blood sweat and tears were involved to finally get it working again.


The new fulcrum

The best way to relax after a busy day fixing things and hauling large heavy things around is obviously to have a game of Chiang Mai (or Jenga, depending on where you are from) and I'm happy to say we managed to achieve a fairly remarkable 39 levels on our tower before the inevitable collapse.


39 levels!

At least when we broke the Jenga tower we knew exactly how long it was going to take to fix it again!
All in all, it was a pretty decent trip out, although the weather was not exactly cooperative. We got things fixed, the cabins are opened up nicely and we're looking forward to the brand new lake season.