After returning on the ferry to the mainland, it was off to Vancouver Airport to return our car rental. En route to Calgary, we had a bit of success taking a couple of photos from the airplane. The aerial shots of Vancouver and the Rocky Mountains are somewhat presentable, so you see them here. While we met Stephane Dion's brother in guise of a legislature guide in Victoria, we saw the real Jack Layton's Air Canada charter jet taking off from Calgary airport just seconds after our own plane landed. We were off to Brooks, Alberta, a city of about 14,000 people, one-and-a-half hours southwest of Calgary. Brooks is a booming Alberta oil town. And as you see, we met up with Trevor's niece Sharon and her husband Nathan who live in Brooks. Not to mention that this was our first time meeting the new addition to our family, Avery who was born on March 4.
The Brooks Aqueduct, an engineering feat which has been preserved as a historic monument, is pictured here. This structure carried water from Lake Newell to the farms of the region and was built by CP Rail. It was a great idea but there were some unforeseen problems with the aqueduct and it didn't work quite as well as they'd hoped. However, it is quite a dramatic structure and a good discussion piece. We were also quite excited to spot a group of pronghorns on the prairie just outside of brooks.
As you see, there were many great photo ops with Avery. We're off to Lethbridge to see Paula, James and their new puppy before returning to Ontario on Sunday. More soon from Lethbridge.
