Winter-lude

We went to Winter-lude, the day after a blizzard, it was a cold minus 5 plus wind-chill, but sunny day. It was in held in Bowring Park, so we had to walk quite far in deep snow. The park looked beautiful with the fresh clean snow. They have stocked the pond with Swans again. They had snow sculptures, where they compress snow into shapes, like a life-sized car and spray paint them. Many kids were sledding, or were pulled in sleds, all cuddled up, they also had games, ice-skating, cross-country skiing etc. One can rent cross-country skis there too. It was very colorful and interesting to watch the children’s faces.

One can also see snow sculptures of more cars, life sized trains, etc. in town, something which I have never seen in Calgary. They also have competitions as part of the winter-festivals, where people build snow sculptures in their gardens and can enter competitions.

At the dog-park there is so much snow that one can’t open the gates anymore, but climb over the fences. You can’t sit on the benches either as they are under snow. Some bus stations are also full of snow. People with small front yards have a wall of iced snow in front of their houses.

I have never thought of it before, but when a town floods, like in Badger and it is below freezing, the water freezes, people can’t go back to their houses until it thaws and there is a lot of damage as the walls are made of wood. Basements usually have carpets and they flood first.

We have had some very cold weather with wind-chills, which feels like minus 30. We drove past Windsor Lake again one day, in a white out, with our hazard warning lights flashing all the way, life goes on. The winds are sometimes so bad that house and car alarms are set off. The toilets gurgle; you must see our dog's expression. Our electricity was off for a few hours one day, luckily the house kept it’s temperature, our biggest problem was water, as our water works with a pump, so we had to melt snow, which we had lots of.