land of the living skies

Just returned from a see-the-family vacation in Saskatchewan and ... wow, this post is going to be a long one. Because if we (the collective 'we', as in you and me) don't take a ton of pictures to document our existence, we might as well die (or have never lived ... then again, the aborigines believed the opposite).

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My mom and I ... some of us get height, some of us get wisdom. And jack-in-the-box grins.

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After much joyous but bittersweet pillaging of downtown shops ("All these dresses are made for tall skinny girls!"), I took C for a walk along the Meewasin Trail, with stops at the Mendel's conservatory, the Pelican-happy weir, the pedestrian and railway bridge, and the University of Saskatchewan.

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One day we drove down to the mineral springs at Watrous (which C pronounces "Wah-truce") ... a 'resort' with the look and feel of something from the Soviet bloc, right down to the pink stucco and octogenarian crowd ... I thought it would be heartening for C to be around people her own height, but all those minerals made her a little salty ...

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Shawn loves sunglasses, trucks and the action end of a hose ...


Oh yes: and watering cans. And flowers. Or anything that looks like a flower.

Tanis and Colin, who graciously hosted a barbecue ...

Mary Ann, Jennifer and Tanis, getting the troops together ...

Everyone (sans me), then the boys, then the ladies. C always loves the gas-passing anonymity of a crowd. Sneaky!

C and Shawn; Jon and Jenn (Jon's just happy not be sleeping in the park these days); Tim, Shawn and Mary Ann; Colin, Landon, Tanis, Ryer (with Ryer and Landon thinking: when can we get back to Halo?).

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On our last full day we drove out to Perdue, the village I grew up in. By emphasizing its smallness, I guess I led C to imagine it as little more than a diner at the side of the road, and she was a quite shocked to be confronted by actual intersections, let alone a post office. At the same time, she found the sky to be a bit too immense ... oppressive even, with so little between one and the sun. Hey, that's how we keep things honest. From top: C hamming it up at SOK 3CO; C at the side doors of my highschool, where my principal used to wait for me just to tell me if I made it on time (if I didn't, I got the day off, which wasn't a very well-thought-out punishment); mom and C in our front yard; the sign for Biggar, just 20 miles down the highway and, as far as I could ever tell, the end of the world.

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Getting home. Why do we attach so much glamour to travel? To me it's like some kind of punishment. And this from a guy who's never used a bathroom on an airplane. Never. They could have lions in there for all I know.

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And then: a book for the airplane. Like most translated books, Night isn't the best written, but the message within overwhelms everything else. I read it in one go (an event unusual enough to make note of it). A personal narration on the horror of Auschwitz will put the cramped quarters of a West Jet flight into sharp perspective.