Oh Canada!

This week I headed to visit a customer in Canada. Luckily, it is still summer and the weather was the best I have ever had there, warm 70's during the day with just dips of 40's in the evening. The site is in a small town trapped between cattle farms between Calgary and Edmonton in the Alberta province. As soon as you leave from the airport and head out on the highway, the smell of cattle is ripe in the air. Not a smell I am especially fond of, but the scenery is picturesque. You can see the Rocky Mountains right outside of town still capped with snow even in August. I did a little driving around near the old Olympic area and could see the ski jump still standing proudly. These days the Olympic focus has shifted to Vancouver from Calgary since they are the host city of next years Winter Games.

In talking with people around here, they notice quickly I was American. Questions were flying about the economy and what was happening over the border despite the amount of info they seem to already know about us. To them, they are in limbo because we are in limbo. They are waiting for us to rebound so their economy can rebound. I know the rest of the world has always watched us but in these bad times, I did not realize that the rest of the world is waiting for us to bring them back too. I had one man tell me that "your president is kinda the ruler of the world except the rest of us have no say in who he is". Interesting perspective. All I could offer them in comfort was it is difficult right now, but don't believe everything you see on TV. For the American media system, if things are good and bad, life or death, they will always tell you the bad and the death in greater length than any instance of good or life. For me, I just want to hear all the good life stuff.

AHH What a vacation!

The last few weeks I have been fortunate enough to not have to be away from home so much. But that also means that business is bad this quarter. No big surprise and I am just lucky to still be employed. Since we had the down time, my husband and I decided to go on vacation. The summer getaways are always sunny and at some beach. This year, we headed down to Aruba for the week. We had never been there before and let me say I will be going back. The beaches were with soft sands and clean. The island is so much cleaner than most places we have been and the people are so welcoming.

As for things to do, the choices are endless. Since we are Harley people, we decided to take a motorcycle tour around the island. This was 4 wheelers that we drove on and mostly off road to see the tourist sites like the Natural Bridge and the Natural Pool. We could ride 2 per bike so I sat in the back and took loads of pictures as my husband tried his best to hit top speed since they did not care what we did on the streets. I just held on.

Besides the island tours, Aruba has tons of opportunities for snorkeling and diving. I am not much for open waters, but we did out to the German merchant ship site Anguilla that sank during WWII. It is a big draw around there for diving. The island has also bought old airplanes and ships that have been sunk all around the coastline for diving and the water is so clear.

The week was up way too fast and we returned home only to be welcomed by the rains. Looking forward to the next Aruba romp.