Highway 2




It's the shortest route between two points, the two points being Edmonton and Calgary, the route being Highway 2. Or the Queen Elizabeth II Highway. Or The Deuce. And though it's short, there is a sense on it of the interminable. A sense that there is nothing to see. And, in a sense, that is true. Or, perhaps, there is nothing to see but things that don't seem to care if you're there. Like the obliterating blue sky.

There are other things that get your attention.

:05 - The split second of being under an overpass is a shadowland.

:13 - Looking east and east and east. East was toward 66 Street and we were taught to remember that because the Shell service station had an e in Shell.

:17 - Duct tape to the rescue!

:19 - My travelling companion of 26 years.

:24 - The Crossfield Esso can be a pretty windy stop. Looking at it I imagine looking back at us going by.

:33 - Charolais statue. It's the same pun all evert time: Charolais Angels.

:38 - Semi shoots back crap. Wipers. Ypres.

:49 - My travelling companion. We tend to take these driving profiles.

:55 - Big hill makes vehicles look like bytes of information.

:59 - A train is like a sentence of words. Explosive words. Miranda rights.

1:13 - Traffic sign above says home is ahead. Those signs are a thrill if you are in Vegas and you see one that reads Salt Lake City. Lots of reading to be done on a highway.

1:16 -  Cops nab speeder in highway still life.

1:18 - Big sky out back window.

1:21 - Tow truck helps.

1:30 - Welcome To Edmonton. Kinda underwhelming welcome.

1:34 - Flyover. Mathematical equation come to life.

1:43 - Ground view.

1:50 - Talus Dome means we're in a city where there's a public art budget.

1:55 - My travelling companion. Highway two of us. Two of us going nowhere....

Moral of the story? There's plenty to see. And see new.


















Comments

  1. Maggie25 April 2013 at 09:14

    You say you got nowhere that you're going to/Can I go nowhere with you?

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

:)

Image
One of the joys and dangers of studying in the MACT program is that you start to feel scared enough to feel confident enough to fool around and try simple new things with technology. The danger is that you're not good enough not to spend most of your time fiddling around doing those things. And, so, this morning I am proud to announce that, taken by the hand, I have managed to embed html vimeo code into my blog. Please, no applause. This is not much, I know. Your basic 8 year old can do more. Asleep. But it is a minor accomplishment for me, because of me. And how I get in the way with my pre-wired reaction that new things won't work. The effect of that kind of thinking (or that lack of thinking) is that I transform the machine in front of me into an antagonistic force working to undo me. But it does remind me of me when I attribute malevolence to the skies when they conspire to bring rain on a morning of golf! Either way, that's bad storytelling. On another leve...
Read more

Hello!

Image
The potential socialness of a bicycle is built right into its roofless and windshieldless and doorless frame. It is easy to say hello on a bicycle. Like this morning. These sidewalkers nodded to me in unison at the exact instant I nodded to them. I said hello to the jogger, and he waved back. Hi, I said, to the dog walkers and the dog, and they nodded a greeting back. Both joggers smiled and said hello as our lives passed. I said hello to the squirrel. I said hello to the woman walking with poles and she returned the hello. The jogger looked over and I said hello as she said hello. I said hello to this fellow egg picker upper and we talked for a couple of minutes. Her bicycle comes out April 1. She is excited. Hello, I said. Hi, she said. I said hello to the  man on the other end of this leash and he said he and his dog were enjoying the beautiful morning. I said hello to this woman and she said hello, and we laughe...
Read more

Some Late Thoughts Listening To Wheat Kings

Image
Wheat Kings in Edmonton, July , 2016 I asked a friend at work what The Tragically Hip song Wheat Kings was about, and he paused for a beat longer than he would have had he not considered the same question many times. And then said: "I don't know." I took this as a good sign both of his humility and the song's profundity. It was an honest question. I don't know much about The Hip. They were cool for the first time when I was watching my wife raise our children, and trying to help the mission where I could. Those were busy days. The 1990s are my mediated decade, preserved by photographs of my younger self. Among the art that didn't get in was The Tragically Hip's. And it was a dishonest question. I knew the song was about David Milgaard's wrongful conviction and wrongful jail time served for the murder of Saskatoon nurse Gail Miller. And it was an honest question, because song's visual shards—that weathervane, a killer's face lit ...
Read more