Friday, April 21, 2006

Signs of the times, part 2

Sometimes you think the computer is your friend..and sometimes you're wrong. So, rather than spend the entire night trying to figure out how to add the copy to the pic I posted yesterday I gave up.
Canada is a friendly place, it's also metric...so your gallons of gas become liters and the speed limit is in kilometers and when you're buying something like fruit you get grams / kilograms, etc. Having dealt with this situation before during a number of trips to Europe and Canada with Significant Other we've come to the conclusion that some things are meant to be - - gallons / pounds / miles per hour and others aren't.
The speed limits I figure out using something I call the rule of 10: 16kilometers = 10mph; 8k = 5mph so 80k is 50mph. The problem comes when you get into a speed reduced area where it drops from 50k to 40k to 30k in a short distance. The first rule in this situation is that you are driving a car with FLORIDA tags in CANADA which is a dead giveaway so you want to be damn sure you are creeping along.
Gas mileage is complicated enough that you don't want to go there unless you have a degree in quantum physics; buying things by weight is easier because all you do is eyeball the item and pay whatever they want if it looks good. After a while you don't really notice too much.
Jasper's wild life hasn't let us down. Groups of elk graze along the roadways and, at least early in the morning, wander through town looking for something / anything to munch on. Judging by the vast array of fences/screens/ribbons/and various other items designed/not designed to ward off hungry animals from making everyone's yard a barren wasteland the elk will eat anything or at least try to. A few years ago we were in Waterton-Glacier National Park (the half on the Canadian side) and were walking by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police station where a small herd of elk were merrily grazing on the well kept lawn and shrubs totally ignoring the signs to "Keep Off".

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