Summer 2007: Doin' it up style (Part I)

September, ie. back-to-school time, used to be third in line for The Most Exciting Day of the Year (with Christmas and my birthday holding on to the one and two spots, of course). But now, without school to go back to, I'm just feeling the end-of-summer malaise. They've pulled the tarp over our swimming pool, dance classes are starting up again, and it's time to warp young children's minds--euh, I mean, provide learning opportunities and spiritual growth at Sunday School. So I'm left with nothing to do but reminisce while the best tan I've had in years slowly sloughs off.

In the wistful spirit of changing leaves and cooling breezes, here's a glance at how we rocked our summer this year.

The main theme of my summer was guiding tours at the "Leg." As a nouvelle Saskie, I spent my summer telling tourists about the history of the province, the state of our government, and our fabulous legislative building. (Looking back on the photos I took on the tour last summer, I was a real jerk tourist.) Guiding the tours was fun and interesting most of the time, with visitors coming from all over the world. Thanks to Little Britian, I was even able to recognize a Welsh accent. By the end of the summer I was pretty sick of my spiel, but stupid questions and crazy tourists usually kept things interesting.

My fellow tour guides and I had a pretty darn good time together. It was a very Heritage Park-esque atmosphere, except we managed to leave the summer with only one acrimonious blowup, which has since been patched over. So mad props to us. We rocked the Canada Day trivia challenge at O'Hanlon's,

went paintballing (which I despised, but everyone else enjoyed. I had a few wicked bruises, including one on a very delicate part of my anatomy), saw some movies, did some wrestling, played Wii and bocce, and generally had a happy-go-lucky kind of time.

We also got to climb up into the dome at the top of the Legislature. It's closed off to the public now, thanks to some guy who decided it would be a great starting point for his suicidal finale. Er, I mean, it's closed off due to fire regulations. Yeah, fire regulations. Anyway, it's pretty darn cool up there--a giant concrete dome with a winding flight of cast iron stairs all the way up into the cupola.

I got to sign my name right next to Roy's!



When my work schedule (which often dominated my summer in the cruellest way) permitted a few days off, we got to get outta dodge a couple of times. Thanks to the lovely lovely folks from church, whose generosity knows no bounds, we enjoyed the beautiful Saskatchewan landscape. First, we went out to Rowan's Ravine provincial park to visit Stacey, Kirby, Jacob and Matthew. We only had about a day to spend, but it felt like a beautiful long weekend. We got to experience s'morewiches, boating on the lake, crayfish shell collecting, a gourmet camp breakfast, and an awesome night of hanging out 'round the ol' campfire. Here we are enjoying our extreme relaxation and a damn fine tent:




We also got to join Chris, Stan, Tim, and two of Tim's friends (and Chris' coachees) at their cottage on Pasqua lake. You may remember our beautiful weekend at the lake from earlier on in the year.
This was also a wonderfully restorative day, featuring unbelievable food, some invigorating (read: freezing) swimming in the lake, and a great evening walk that ended with one of the dogs rolling in the most foul-smelling garbage in the history of smells. At 6:00 in the morning, I bravely joined Chris in another invigorating (read: hypothermic) swim across the lake. The water was rather choppy, and I feared for my ability to continue living. But it was an experience like no other when the sun strained through the clouds and the flock of pelicans in front of us leapt to flight. Ahhhh, wilderness!

Finally, James and Janelle and I were brave enough to try camping on our own. We were cautious and tried only a single-day trip, but now we're confident enough to go for a longer trip next year. We chose Buffalo Pound provincial park for its buffalo-viewing opportunities, and landed a sweet campsite. I just can't get over how awesome the provincial park facilities are in Saskatchewan. It's so easy to check in and get a site, and they've got lots of clean indoor bathrooms, unlimited firewood, and all kinds of other amenities. Loves the Skatch. So, with minimal confusion, we managed to set up our tent.


Despite the 30-degree weather, we set off on a hike to see the buffalo, armed only with a vague sense of where the trail went. We felt pretty intrepid as we enjoyed the beautiful valley
and braved the sweltering temperatures.

After hiking for... well, forever, we decided that we must have missed the trail loop, which was only supposed to be 3 km or something like that. As we dragged our dehydrated butts back to the car, we discovered the fork in the path about five minutes from the trailhead.

See that nice little blue loop there? Yeah, that's where we were supposed to go.

Upon closer inspection of the trail sign, we discovered that we'd taken off down to the end of the orange extreme trail. Ooops.
Thankfully, we had just enough energy left over to hike up the observation tower and spot some buffalo.

They were pretty awesome and intimidating, except for the adorable baby buffalo. Awwww.


It had cooled off a lot by the time we got back, but we still went for a wade in the lake. That is, the girls went for a nice, sensible wade.
James got soaked almost to the waistline. Those were some wet shorts.


We enjoyed a bit of mini golf at the park's bizarr-o course, which featured such family-oriented fare as headless horses.
Using the skills he learned from his mother, James built us an excellent fire. Look at that setup!


and we had an awesome weiner and corn roast,

and played campfire games that involved smearing crap all over our faces which, let's face it, is always fun.

There's a hardcore thunderstorm brewing outside, so I'm going to go close the windows. Part II of our summer adventures to follow.