The 11 O’Clock Number presented an Improvised Musical at this year’s Fringe.

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Grindstone Theater from Edmonton Canada presented The 11 O’clock Number at this year’s Orlando International Fringe Festival. They managed to stage a fully improvised musical built around a prompt from the audience. From our audience they decided to use an entertainment lawyer who liked working from the beach. What made it even more funny is that the actress playing the part of the entertainment lawyer really had no idea what an entertainment lawyer actually did. It became an ongoing joke as she guessed about her role.

The plot centered around a spoiled child star and her sister who felt she could be a star as well if she were only given a chance. The villain was a scheming producer who wanted to have the kid sign her life away.  Every song was heart felt and yet hilarious. There is some major talent involved in making up lyrics on the fly. The music must have been established in rehearsals with the piano accompaniment, but the new lyrics were amazing. The result was a solid hour of laughter. This was entertaining improv at it’s best.

Relaxing at the Lake Louise Ski Resort.

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In an effort to be sure all sketches are posted online, I’ve started signing sketches once they are published. This way, hopefully, no sketches will slip through the cracks. In the early years sketches often slipped by because the latest sketch and experience seemed fresher and more exciting. Looking back at vacation sketchbooks, I was surprised to find this Lake Louise, Canada sketch unsigned. That morning, Terry decided she was going on a horse back ride up to the lip of a glacier. I don’t trust horses so the morning was mine to find a sketch opportunity.

I went through the town maps and brochures and decided that the gondola ride was probably sketch worthy. It was summer however, so there wasn’t much snow on the lower slopes.
The Lake Louise Ski Resort
(1 Whitehorn Road, Lake Louise
Alberta, Canada, T0L 1E0) had this gorgeous ski lodge at the base of the mountain. I could faintly see the gondola snaking it’s way up the first slope. I went inside to check on ticket prices. After a quick deliberation, I decided the lodge would be my subject. I had to sit in the parking lot to do the sketch, so I was always looking around to be sure I wasn’t run over by a wayward tourist bus or an RV.

Every half hour or so a bus would park in front of the lodge. All the tourists would pile out of the bus, take a cell phone photo and then pile back in. I’m glad that Terry and I travel at our own pace. Back at the hotel, Terry made fun of me for not riding the Gondola. She made clucking noises to rub it in. Her morning had been a real adventure riding her horse through muddy slopes to the glacier.A little friendly competition on vacation isn’t a bad thing. I grant Terry won this round.

Jump Start your morning in Banff

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Every morning while staying in Banff, Terry and I would start our day at Jump Start Coffee (206 Buffalo St, Banff, Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada). This is a small coffee shop that is frequented by locals who order a cup of coffee and read the morning paper. Terry and I would order an egg sandwich or muffin and then some extra food to take out for lunch later in the day. The proprietress was pleasant so it made sense to, keep returning. The food was simple but good.

The view out the front window was of the town park and the history museum as well as the huge mountains. Some locals returned every morning and the coffee shop became a place to gossip[ and find out what was going on in town. It felt like a welcome relief from the endless tourist stores that tend to line the main street. The place felt much like the local places I return to often in Orlando whe I find some spare time between sketch opportunities.

A hike around Lake Louise

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Lake Louise in the Candaian Rockies is one of the most beautiful lakes in the world. From our hotel, the Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise, (111 Lake Louise Dr, Lake Louise, AB T0L 1E0, Canada) Terry and I hiked around the lake on the western shore. The trail only gets to the far end of the lake before it ends. On the first hike, I stopped half way out to do this sketch looking back at our Chateau. Terry pushed on until the trail ended.

On a second hike, I walked with her to the end of the trail. On the cliffs at that end of the lake, rock climbers were scaling the pure vertical face of the rock. Although there were safety ropes and spotters below, it still seems pretty daring to trust the person below to keep you from falling to your death should you slip. The walking trail ended at a large glacial stream which must be fed by the large glacier up in the mountain pass. When we returned from the hike, I noticed a large class of students sitting on the terrace of the chateau doing watercolors of the lake. I glanced over a few shoulders and resisted the temptation to ask, “Are you an artist?” It was time for an afternoon tea and a nap.

Mounties on Parade for Canada Day in Jasper

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As luck would have it, Terry and I were in Jasper, Canada for Canada day. Were were warned by out hotel that parking would be hellish downtown and that we should use the shuttle bus for a price. We ignored their warnings and found a parking spot easily. We had breakfast at a nice downtown deli and then I headed to the town park where the parade was going to start. People were already setting up their lawn chairs on the sidewalk to be sure they had a prime spot to watch the parade. I got to overheard plenty of town gossip from the locals. There is plenty of drama even in a mountain town paradise. One woman’s sister is married to a convict in prison. The family warned the girl, but love is blind. I found a shady spot across the street and watched the mounties line up in formation for the parade. There was a flag waving ceremony in Centennial Park which the mounties were a part of.

The Canadian flag was everywhere. People had dozens of hand held flags and some people had Canadian flag temporary tattoos on their faces at least I hope they were temporary. Flags functioned as capes and cloaks. By the time the parade officially started, my sketch was finished. I texted Terry and walked back towards the deli where we had breakfast. She was there seated at an outdoor table with red and white helium balloons tied to her chair. It was a typical small town parade with floats advertising local businesses and groups of children marching with their martial arts group of a high school band. Their was plenty of candy thrown into the crowd which sent kids running into the street to collect their loot.

The big draw that evening was the fireworks. It gets dark very late in the Canadian Rockies so it was still light when the first rockets lit the sky at 11:15pm. Terry and I got hot dogs from a vendor and sat with the crowd on a grassy hillside overlooking the soccer field where the mortars were set up. A fenced in area on a baseball diamond housed the beer garden where a crowd sipped beers while watching the fireworks. It was a great display with a thunderous grand finale. Afterwards Terry and I hoped to find an open store but the town was silent. All the celebrating had stopped and the streets were quit except for a few rowdy teens,  although I bet we could have found a crowd in a local bar.

On the drive back to the hotel, we looked for moose or elk wading in the moonlit streams but didn’t find any. Back at the hotel we ordered root beer floats as a treat before we went to bed since we had forgotten to eat dinner.

Relaxing by a glacial stream

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Terry and I stopped at a narrow valley in the Canadian Rockies which had a trail leading to the cliff edge of another glacier. The parking lot was right beside a meandering glacial stream. This became the resting spot for tourists before the hike and after. I hiked with Terry up to a rocky overlook that gave a sweeping view of the whole valley.

A warning sign marked the trail from this halfway point toward the glacier wall. It warned that if the glacier calved, that hikers could drown or be crushed by building sized chunks of ice. Terry wanted to push forward on the unmaintained trail but I turned back to sketch at the stream. One woman was carving her initials on a rock using a smaller rock as her writing tool. I don’t understand this basic human need to scar a gorgeous landscape to prove that you had been there. I suppose I’m doing the same thing by sketching. I need to leave a mark. Stones probably last longer than paper, so maybe I picked the wrong medium to work with.

We had drinks in the car, so I grabbed one and hiked back to the first overlook. I got a bit nervous when I finished my sketch and Terry hadn’t returned. Of course if the glacier had calved, I would have noticed the immense surge of water down the valley. Of course she didn’t know where I had set up to sketch, so I hiked back to the car. When she returned, we had lunch in the car and then pushed off to the next sight.

Lake Louise is one of the most beautiful lakes in the world

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Terry and I stayed in the Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise in Alberta Canada and the room had a fabulous view overlooking the lake. While Terry explored the hotel, I sketched. The hotel isn’t as gorgeous at the Fairmont hotel in Banff but the view made up for any deficiency. The pool was under repair and the lobby seemed to always be full of bus loads of Japanese tourists. The lake had a magical turquoise color that is hard to capture with a simple watercolor wash. The color is caused by the cloudy glacial silt that is always suspended in the water.

Terry and I walked to the far end of the lake where rock climbers were scaling cliffs. I wasn’t tempted to try this myself. I would need to loose a few pounds before trying to support my weight from my fingertips. We took another trail that went half way up a steep slope to an overlook that offered a birds eye view of the lake. It started to rain and we put on our rain gear. Tiny yellow canoes dotted the lake everywhere. When we got back from that hike, we saw a couple in a canoe that capsized. That glacial water is ice cold so they were in danger of quickly drowning. A motor boat quickly got out to rescue them and tow the canoe back.  At diner that night the capsized couple were the topic of every conversation. Terry and I didn’t rent a canoe.

The Fairmont Hotel in Banff Makes a luxurious home base in the Canadian Rockies.

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Terry and I stayed at the well appointed Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel (405 Spray Ave, Banff, AB T1L 1J4, Canada). As soon as we drove up, valet’s helped us with our luggage and got us checked in. Our room was high up in one of the turrets making it feel like we were staying in a Scottish castle.

William Cornelius Van Horne, the general manager of Canadian
Pacific Railway (CPR) has been credited with recognizing the tourism
potential of the Canadian west. Van Horne maintained tourism was an
intricate ingredient in getting people to ride CPR and was conscious of
the financial possibilities attached to the western mountain scenery.
His philosophy reflected this awareness, ‘Since we can’t export the
scenery,’ he said, ‘ we’ll have to import the tourists.’ To enhance
traffic on the CPR, Van Horne envisioned a succession of lavish resort
hotels along the railway line through the Rocky and Selkirk Mountains. Van Horne hired Bruce Price of New York, one of the leading architects of the time to design and build the Fairmont Hotel. Construction of the Hotel
began in the spring of 1887 and the hotel publicly opened on June 1,
1888.

I sketched Terry as she looked at a guide book planning our next day’s adventure. From this back patio you could hear the distant Bow River waterfall. We hiked down to the waterfall and discovered that this was the launching place for daily river rafting trips. We decided to take the rafting trip which went down river for many miles. The passenger next to me lost his paper day planner in the water. Luckily it floated along side the raft. My reach was just long enough to touch it with my finger tips. It sank at my touch and I cursed. It rose to the surface again and then I grasped it. Everyone on the raft cheered. Had he used a digital device it would be at the bottom of the river.

Hoodoo you think your fooling?

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Hoodoos are rocky sandstone spires that appear after eons of erosion. These hoodoos were located a short drive from the second hotel we stayed at in Banff. These magical spires are carved
by wind and water protected by a hard cap of rock at the peak.

A sign at the roadside parking lot warned about bears. I was more concerned about the gloomy grey clouds that moved through the Bow river valley. A well maintained trail lead to this spot that overlooked the hoodoos. I sketched from the opposite side of the fence which protects tourist from falling into the valley as they stare into their digital devices.

There was a steep sloped trail that lead right to the base of the Hoodoos and Terry decided to hike down while I sketched. She sang while she walked to warn any bears of her approach. The clouds let off a light mist of rain. It wasn’t raining hard enough to send me running for cover, but it certainly made it hard to put watercolor washes on the sketch. Any time a drop hit the page it would explode and remove pigment from the sketch.

I saw Terry’s photos from the base of the hoodoos and they are impressive up close. I wanted to include the human element however and I could always catch a tourist taking a photo from the trial’s corral.

The Baniff Marathon Fills the Quiet Mountain Town

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Terry and I used Banff, Alberta Canada as our home base for quite a few days. The town park near the river was the starting line and finish line for a marathon. We were hiking into town from our hotel and came across the marathon just outside of town. I decided to sketch runners as they ran the final few yards to the finish line. The building in the sketch is the Banff Park Museum. We never did go inside. Terry shopped in the many stores along the mains street while I did this sketch.

Banff is in the Banff National Park in the Alberta Canadian Rockies. Banff is a resort town and one of Canada’s most popular tourist destinations, known for its mountainous surroundings and hot springs. It is a destination for outdoor sports and features extensive hiking, biking, and skiing areas within the area.

By the time I started to sketch, the lead runners had already finished. The spectators cheered just as loud for the people who were struggling just to finish the race. Finishing a marathon is an achievement in itself. Some runners had slowed down to a walk, but thanks to she cheers and knowing the finish line was in sight, they often started to run again.

When I was in high school, I trained extensively for the cross country team. I wasn’t very fast but I always finished any race I ran. I started training for a marathon to be held in Atlantic City. I ran further than the marathon distance on some days. I was obsessed. However on race day, I missed the bus to the starting line. So I have never officially run a marathon, so that is something that is still on by bucket list.