Cruisin' westward August 15 - August 31, 2003

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I like to learn
Getting lost when you're on vacation is great. You see things you'd never have seen and they are usually very interesting. This place is, I believe, the Grant McKewan College, stretching over a few blocks. If you go inside, you can look up through the dome in the middle and see....

I can see the light!
Just don't be sitting there when the asteroid hits Earth in 2014.

DON'T EAT ME OR I'LL DROP YOU!
So you start up a restaurant. You want people to feel good about going to your place. The name will inspire people to say it often and come back often. It gives them good feelings! So what do you name it? Angry Chicken. Sounds more like a military project.

So she says to me, she says...
I take pictures of people, usually incognito. These two were on to me, however, so I was forced to approach them to ask their permission, lest they think I was some freak taking pictures. I'm not sure I convinced them.

bap bap badoobap
West Edmonton Mall has pretty much something of everything. In this case, a perennial jazz player on the "Bourbon Street" of WEM. He's been there for decades, so I think he has Kenny G beat for longest sustained playing.

Rocks. Lots and lots of rocks.
In the southern part of Alberta, very close to the BC border, there was a town called Frank. At the turn of the last century (1901ish), a mine was set up in this mountain, called Turtle Mountain. At the time, there was a flurry of immigrants coming into the country looking for The Good Life. Some of them found it in mining; so many of them, in fact, that a town was built around the mine. A town called Frank. On April 29, 1903, at 4:10 a.m., 82 million tonnes of limestone crashed from the summit of Turtle Mountain and buried a portion of the sleeping town of Frank. The rock mass was 150 metres deep, 425 metres high and one kilometre (3,280 feet) wide. Frank was home to approximately 600 people in 1903. Of these, roughly 100 individuals lived in the path of the slide. An estimated 70 people were killed. There are boulders bigger than you (yes, even YOU) lying all over the area still. The place looks like a disaster just hit, over a century after it happened.

A whole lot o' rock & rolling
This spot allows people to see the mountain up close with a telescope. You can see the scale of boulders.

Like...big!
Apparently, there is another part of the mountain that may fall some day, at which point it will become a "hill" and the town in its way will become "pieces". But enough of the disaster talk. People are thriving all around the area today in any business you can think of. Including selling rocks.

In the summer, it provides a lovely draft through the home
Clearly, these people are strong believers in "Go Big or Go Home". This wind generator provides copious amounts of energy and is a genuine giant. If you look closely at the bottom, you can see a barn. Seriously.


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