Postcards from Sherman

Busy weekend here at the park, so I've been doing my middle of the night walks to make sure that nobody is out being stupid. That means I usually don't sleep well, and when we finally got up at 7:30am yesterday morning we were till pretty tired.

But I had to get up because at 8:00am, I had a job to do!

Our regular readers might remember that our son Alex and his friend Matt have taken part in the annual Ottawa CityChase race for the last couple of years, and yesterday was the 2016 event.

Over 300 teams of two compete in what is described as a cross between a 10k run and the Amazing Race. You're allowed to use cell phones and the internet to solve the 22 location clues in between running (or taking public transportation) to get to those locations. That means you're allowed to have friends help you solve the clues. I was one of the helpers, and the race started at 8:00am our time.

Alex and Matt came in 7th in 2014, and 2nd in 2015. They're both athletic and smart...and competitive. They had 1st place in their sights.

And they pulled it off! A whole two minutes ahead of the 2nd place team, which is not very much in a two and a half hour race. Most teams will finish in between three and four hours.

So, that gave them a $1,000 gift card to Marshall's department store, as well as a few other prizes. And entry to the Canadian national evet held in September in Niagara Falls. Last year, they came in 3rd at the nationals, out of 19 teams.

So, besides coming in first place, they also raised $820 towards the Goodlife Kids Foundation to help children with autism lead more active lives.

When it was all over, I just wasn't in the mood to write a blog post, so we actually took a rare blogging day off yesterday!

We received a couple of postcards from Sherman though! He really enjoyed the rockies and Banff and Jasper. Now, he's in Calgary for the Calgary Stampede.

Tana and Graham say they're having no problems with Sherman at all, and he's been a very good boy. Only a broken wine glass so far, so that's good! 

I heard back from Sask Power regarding our transformer poles here at the park. Yes, they can put insulators on the poles to protect the birds, and they're willing to do so. Only problem is when. He said they're short staffed and with all the small storms that are going through this area they have too much work and not enough men to do it. But he promised that it's on their list of things to do, and it will get done. No promises as to when. I guess that's all we can ask, and if it's not done by the end of the summer, I"ll call them and remind them.

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