Introduction

Oh how I long for the day I can devote the summer months to my site, not that I want to give up my job in the Prince Albert National Park. I love it there and would really miss it. I guess I just can't have my cake and eat it to; I cannot be in two places at the same time.

I hope everyone had a great summer and fall. I had a good summer and fall, but an interesting one also. I bought myself a new-to-me car, practically brand new, my newest I have ever had. Oh how excited I was, and oh how happy I am that I decided to put a package policy on it. This is not a story from the Annapolis Valley at all but it is a true story that happened to me this summer and I think you may find it an interesting one.

Only about 5 weeks after I bought it, on July 18th my friends and I were sitting out in my screen tent having our supper. We often get together for supper and share our food with each other and chat about our day at work and our plans for the evening. We were enjoying each other's company when a storm suddenly came up in the park as they often do at this time of the day. Being very adventurous people, (we have even at times been called storm chasers, but we are not quite that bad) but we decided to go for a drive to watch the lightening over the lake. Yeah there were warnings about severe weather and chance of hail, but we had heard that before, famous last words.

We really should have taken warning also when we got to Mud Creek and stopped to look at and take pictures of the very dark and threatening clouds. But we didn't and when the rain started we got back in the car and drove down to South Bay to watch the storm over the water.

One of the first things I noticed when we arrived at the beach was this white wall coming across the lake. I was astounded, I had never seen such a white wall of rain, and the lake water was splashing so high as the rain met the lake water! I was soon to find out why as very soon it hit shore and the white was hail! Not just small hail, big hail, baseball size hail! We were being pounded and pounded hard. As soon as the couple who had got out investigating the hail closer got back into the car we took off out of there.

I learned one valuable lesson that day. Even though we were on a woods road with trees all around us, the aspen trees were no good at all for protecting us against such monstrous hail. We tried to find cover in several places, but nothing would slow down the attack, the noise was deafening as it tortured my poor car. Only a few minutes into the attack and both my front and back windshield were shattered, the back one completely smashed out.

Add to the torment of the hail all we could think of was with hail this big and steady where was the tunnel cloud going to find us! My time living in Saskatchewan has taught me one thing, usually when you have bad hail there is usually a twister with it. In our minds our only hope was to make it back to town and take cover there in the basement of the lodge. So the extremely long, terrifying journey of the approximately 15 km back to what we felt was safety started.

One of my friends had started her video going on her camera during the drive. For most of it she was so over-whelmed with emotion she forgot to point the camera at anything, most of it you only see the floor of the car. But to listen to the noise of the hail and our screams and comments you would think it was coming from a popular horror movie. She did get some incredible footage of the hail hitting the road in front of us every once in awhile also.

After the longest 15 km I have ever driven we made it crawling back into the town of Waskesiu only to see it already looked like a war zone. There were trees down along the way, the ditches and roads were already flooding and leaves and branches littered the ground everywhere. One of the horrors that haunt my mind was the animals we seen while on the drive. Elk and deer were running everywhere to try to find shelter and this only added to the slow speed of our journey as they were running frantically not even realizing we were there.

After finding somewhere partially under cover at the lodge we had to be escorted from the vehicle by Danny & Mike under pieces of carpet over our heads to the back of the lodge where we stood in disbelief for another good twenty minutes watching the damaging hail and torrential rain poured out of the angry sky. To date any hail I had encountered before in my life had lasted for the most 5 to 10 minutes, but this lasted a good three quarters of an hour, if not even longer. And the size of the hail never let up either; it was baseball size from the start to the last one to fall.

When the storm finally ended we were able to observe all the damage. How no one was seriously injured during this storm I will never know, it hit fast and at a time people would have been out around the town and beaches. But no reports of serious injury to anyone came in, everyone seemed to have been able to seek shelter in time. Even one lady who it was reported shared a cook shack with a black bear was thankfully only shaken by her experience. The cook shacks are a roofed in picnic area and are set up with two picnic tables on either side separated by a centre wood stove. It was said that during the storm this lady crawled under one picnic table only to find after the storm a bear hiding under the other picnic table.

The town and park was another matter as the streets were all completely flooded and washed out. Trees were fallen everywhere including on cabins and RV's and across walking trails. Debris of leaves and branches completely covered the roads, lawns and even vehicles. Stores, houses and cabins everywhere had windows broke out and roofs and siding damaged. There was hardly a vehicle in the area that did not suffer hail damage, windows and windshields were shattered out everywhere. My poor "new" car was a sad sight with it's over $8000 damage to it. The amount of insurance claims was so vast that it was late in September before I could get my car fixed, and there are still some waiting to get in.

It was definitely a storm I will never forget, the so many different emotions during it gave us an adrenaline rush that will never be beat. The disbelief, excitement and the terror combined and added with the pain of seeing my new car so badly damaged kept me on what seemed like a high for several days.

Then I spent the rest of the summer capturing the damage and after effects of the storm to the park. The massive amount of rain and run-off caused the lake to rise to its highest levels ever on record flooding most of the beaches and picnic areas for the remainder of the summer. Almost all of the walking trails were closed for the rest of the summer because of flooding and amount of trees down. The clean up was still going on when I left the park in October and will probably continue on through the year and into most if not all of next summer also. I heard that every roof in Waskesiu has to be re-shingled because of the hail.

That was my summer, other than that it was a quiet summer. I am now spending my winter with my son and his family again and going to visit my step-daughter whenever possible.

Upcoming Events

I will try to get on top of the new events going on the first of the New Year. I am working on a plan to change my events calendars during the winter. Until I get this project finished and even after you can keep updated on upcoming events through my Annapolis Valley Facebook page. I have been updating this page every morning and try to post any events happening in the valley area here.

Updates & Changes to Annapolis-Valley-Vacation.com

I plan to complete web site pages on the many annual events and festivals that go on in the valley. I do have some of these ready to post but they are not up yet. To do this it requires a lot of research and preparation on the many events. If there are any of you out there that organize any of these annual events and would like them included on my web site please send me the information or a web site URL where I may find the information. You may send it through my comment pages; by sending me a message through my Annapolis Valley Facebook page; or replying to this Ezine. Please remember to send the name of the event, when it takes place and where and any other information you can, including where I can find out more myself.

I have also been working on my Annapolis Valley Facebook page lately as this has become very popular, over 580 followers so far and growing each day. The pictures from around the Annapolis Valley and especially the old postcards are very popular. I try to add some new ones every couple of weeks and hope to continue this all next summer. To prepare for that I have been sorting the many pictures and postcards I have and adding the headings and links so they are all ready to go up. This will save me lots of time during my busy summers.

I have also added a new feature on there of a different question from the Annapolis Valley every day. The answers to these questions may be found on my web site and links to the pages they are located on are included with every question. I am finding people are trying to answer the question and then checking out the web site to see if they were right. Either way I am receiving comments showing that people are actually reading the web site pages looking for the answers. These I have also been working on trying to have a batch of questions ahead all ready to put up all year long.

Something that has stemmed from these daily questions is some trivia pages to add to my web site. Through all my research on the Annapolis Valley I have come across interesting little tidbits of information that would not warrant a whole page but are interesting none the less. Some are about extreme weather conditions, unusual flowers being picked in the winter, famous people from the area, tidbits of information about our different industries or daily activities, little things that happened in our history and singular events that took place. I have been sorting these into different pages and have them almost ready to upload to my site.

As mentioned in the spring I also still want to set up pages for the local books of the area during the winter. I am still unsure of the best way to do this but I am positive I can come up with something. There are just so many good books being written out there by local artist and about the area I would like to have them included on my site. I hopefully will be working on this soon.

So as you can tell I have been busy working on my site, I just do not have a lot to show you of my work at the moment. There will be some new pages going up the first of the New Year though so keep checking Annapolis Valley Vacation for new material.

My Sponsors

Here is a list of my sponsor companies with a little more information about them for you.

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• Avis Rent-A-Car is one of the most recognized and respected car rental companies in the world. They offer both business & leisure customers a wide range of services worldwide. If you are looking to rent-a-car I recommend Avis.com.

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• All-Battery.com is the largest web site for all types of rechargeable batteries. In this day and age everything takes batteries and rechargeable ones are the only way to go. Make sure to stock up on lots of batteries for your vacation by visiting All-Battery.com.

• Factory Outlet Store is an electronics retailer dedicated to bring you top brand-name manufacturers. If you are looking for a GPS so you can try Geocaching in the Annapolis Valley this is where you will find great deals, Instant Rebates & Free Shipping on GPS, Phones, Headsets, Electric Shavers & Toothbrushes!

• When travelling life can be so much easier with great luggage and the place to find great luggage at fantastic prices is Irv's Luggage. They sell brand name luggage, briefcases, duffels, backpacks, handbags and travel accessories at guaranteed low prices. Remember - Irvs Luggage - Lowest Prices!

• Sears Canada is a familiar name and has been trusted for providing quality services, products and solutions to their customers for years. Whatever you are looking for make sure to check it out at www.sears.ca first for great service and low prices.

• Sony Style is Canada's largest electronics manufacturer. I have owned and used several Sony cameras and will recommend them to both the amature and proffessional alike. When looking for a digital camera or a video camera for your trip make sure to Visit Sony Style Canada for Great Sony Offers on cameras you can rely on.

This wraps up another month. Not as many visible additions to my web site but it was still a very busy month. I would like to take this time to wish all of you a very Merry Christmas and a safe and happy New Year!

Remember if you have any suggestions of things you would like to see on this site please feel free to contact me by answering to this Ezine, using my contact forms, or now by submitting your stories yourself.

Until next month, have fun, live good and love hard!