Parting Shots - Part 1

So.... we're doing it. The Bailer Bunch are moving to B.C. No longer will we be able to call ourselves 'Winnipeggers' (I'm not sure if there's a double G in that).

"I'm leaving - on a jet plane. / Don't know when I'll be back again..."

Kind of a sad song, isn't it? Well, that's the song that's been running through my head in the last little while. Man, that John Denver really knows how to capture the mood. It's all true. I am leaving, and I really don't know when I'll be back again...but I guess it's not going to be all that long. I'm sure that we'll make many trips back this way in the future. I just don't know exactly when.

I'd prefer to come back on summer holidays, when my ears won't fall off from exposure if I forget my toque. No thanks.  I don't want to come back in mosquito season, either. That sucks. And let's not forget that spring melting period when all the snowbanks on the side of the road turn to grey and brown from all the sand they put on the roads in the winter, and that muddy/sandy slush-like matter seems to be everywhere... If you're from, or have ever been to Winnipeg you probably know what I mean. (I imagine it gets like that in other prairie cities too.)

I never would have imagined this in million years, but I guess someday I'll find myself saying:

"Hop in the car, kids! This summer - we're goin' to WINNIPEG!!   WHOO-HOO!!!"

Again, if you're from Winnipeg, you'd get the sarcasm. Sometimes it seems like this is the biggest city in Canada where nothing ever happens.

But I'm not posting this to rag on my hometown. The cold, the bugs, the lack of landscape - I'm actually going to miss all that stuff someday. I'm sure that if I ever get attacked by a mountain lion while hiking in BC, right in the middle of it, I'll be thinking that Manitoba mosquitoes weren't so bad after all. 

Anyway, the whole point of this article was to post some images that I've shot around Winnipeg in the last few years. I have a trillion more, but I just want to put them out there to show you all that I actually do appreciate this city. There's an amazing amount of beauty here. Sure, I've got a few complaints (as anyone would about the city they live in), but there's a uniqueness about Winnipeg that I have not encountered anywhere else that I've been. It's hard to put a finger on it. I think it has something to do with being right in the middle of Canada; the 'Crossroads of the Nation' effect; a state of Limbo, if you will. Literally and/or figuratively, we'll all be passing through there someday.

Just make sure you bring a pair of mitts and some bug spray..



Until next time:

May the Force be with you...