Snow in the Rockies

After a fun filled, sun drenched holiday in Florida, I have returned to my 'home' of the moment in Calgary to find it covered in a thin layer of cold white frozen stuff. As much as I love the sun, I must say I do harbor a fair amount of the opposite emotion towards snow.

It makes things beautiful, but people forget how to drive in it, and it's just plain cold. If we could have the fun of snow, while enjoying the warmth of the sun and summer, I would enjoy it as much as any other person!

But sliding around in a car, avoiding icy patches that are staring you in the face, falling on my butt because it was plus 10 this morning, and icy rain is coating everything this evening type of days, do not actually do anything to win me any favor.

Seeing as winter is the option that we are stuck with on this part of the equator and world, I have decided to put together a list of the best places to go while it's snowing. Keep a look out, it will be posted soon, with some old favorites, and some new tidbits that might even have me smiling about the snow. Maybe.

Hockeytown

I have just spent the past week chilling out in Calgary, and enjoying the craziness that is known as playoff fever.  There is no other city in Canada that embraces Playoff Fever like Calgary.  With no other major teams to concentrate on, Calgary takes the Flames as their own, and will not let anything get in their way.  

Unfortunately, the team almost let game 4 slip out of their grasp last night, but if you ever find yourself in Calgary, I would highly suggest a trip the Saddledome (a tribute to their cowboy roots that bring you the Calgary Stampede) for a game.  And don't dispair if you can only get a nosebleed seat...(because you are so far up) as these seats are filled with the crazy and the fun, while down below is the rigid corporate types, and lots of empty seats.  They don't know what they are missing!

For more information on the Flames, and how to get tickets, click here!

Next stop?  Las Vegas!

My love/hate relationship

While the snow continues to fall, I am reminded of my last two homes, in New Zealand and Australia, where the snow didn't find me.  I had to go find it.  And when I did see snow, it was a completely joyful reunion where I frolicked and played like a small child again!  But the difference was that I didn't see it every day.  It didn't plague me on my days off, taunting me with nice days when I am stuck inside working, and then snowing every chance it gets when I'm allowed to join the outside world.

Here we are, sitting at the half way point of April and we are still getting snow.  A winter day in Melbourne means rain and wind.  Same as a lot of the UK, save Scotland who gets their fair share of snow.  A winter day in the Bay of Plenty in New Zealand, means rain and cold winds.  I can take the wind.  I can stand the rain.  What I'm a little sick of is this white stuff that is a cross between ice and rain, and brings with it freezing cold temperatures, and misery.

Why am I here?  Why do I call Calgary home?  I don't.  That probably explains everything.

Sometimes Travel Isn't Necessary

Please forgive my lack of posting the past couple days.  But as the title suggests, sometimes you don't have to stray very far from your own back yard to find yourself in an exotic land.

And that is exactly what happened in Calgary for the past two days.  A snowstorm blew in and was causing all sorts of commotion with close to 30cm of snow dropped in about 8 hours.  It's amazing how drivers who have been living in a snowy wintery wonderland for years on end, can still forget how to drive after the snow disappearing for all of five days.  

It was quite a scene, sitting on my balcony and watching the craziness slide by.  And slide it did with the amount of people on the road who were a little too heavy on their brakes, as well as their petrol pedals!  Cars going backwards, sliding sideways, and of course a fair number were stuck.  Stuck in snowbanks, stuck after spinning their tires, it was quite a sight to behold!

And on days like that, it's nice to know that I can step outside my condo and see a sight so foreign (though it shouldn't be) that all I can do is laugh.

God bless the last snowstorm of the year.  (And hopefully the last one that I will have to live through here in Canada!)