They said you have a blue guitar
That doesn’t play things as they are.
The man replied, “Things as they are
Are changed upon the blue guitar.”….
- Wallace Stevens( I think)
Anyway, up early Sunday morning and off from affluent Calgary to the booming oil area beyond Edmonton. Actually, we took a perimeter route around Edmonton, which we feared was still celebrating yesterday’s win over Carolina . Believe me, no one up here thinks the final goal was at all in dispute. Anyway, we are sitting in Whitecourt about 100 miles northwest of Edmonton tonight. It drizzled on and off for a good part of the ride today, and actually rained for a while, but had pretty much stopped by the time we reached the campground. In some ways, this was the dullest ride of the trip, though it would be unfair ro say it isn’t a pretty area. Calgary is cattle country and that pretty much continues up to Edmonton and beyond. Occasionally a working oil rig can be spotted from the highway, but there is no spectacular scenery, and perhaps we became jaded after yesterday’s trip to the Rockies. I may have mentioned this, but several people told me that the Alberta Rockies may be the most beautiful part of our trip. So far, they are right!…. Once again we got stiffed on an internet hook-up. The campground is changing from modems to wi-fi, but the wi-fi isn’t hooked-up yet (They’re waiting for an electrician, Ethan)and the modems are gone….. But Dave is very happy to be here: They have a petting zoo— for real. A few goats, a miniature donkey, some turkeys, chickens, a sheep, and one loud bantam rooster. And now the blue guitar. Right after we got here, Dave said he was going into town to pick up some groceries. Town is a couple minutes away. He returned over an hour later. As soon as supper was over, he said he was heading to the river, the mighty Athabasca River which boundaries one side of the campground. The only way to the river is past the petting zoo. He came back to report a fisherman with a couple pike down at the boat launch. No mention of the petting zoo. In honesty, I did stop at the petting zoo myself, and in addition to the normal menagerie, they had about ten or twelve seemingly tropical birds. So that was about it. Not the most stimulating day, but if you want to liven it up a bit, just try the blue guitar….