Orbs 'r' Us

PoD and I started out at 6:15 am on the 11th after an agonizing week of waiting for our favorite subject to happen! I had been dreaming of soaking in a hot tub [my tub is trailer size...I don't fit] in the early morning hours while waiting for PoD to wake up! Generally just to make it a relaxing weekend...our holiday together.

PoD had even warned her family that she was going no matter what and NO ONE better get sick! As it turned out JD was feeling a little ill when we left but as PoD said...he does have a father.

It was a semi dark when we took off that morning but we knew the road well enough that it wasn't too much of a bother [we are both night blind] and the rising sun wasn't bad either but when we hit the quarter way mark, it got foggy! We figured it to be the river area that it was the thickest.

It was so bad that vehicles startled you when they approached! One of the reasons we had left so early was to take our time and enjoy the scenery. The fog made that impossible! It was a really intense time for both of us and we both tried to make light of the situation, hoping that it would end soon and not last all of the way there.

Until PoD made a creepy remark...

"What if we had died in a car accident in Kindersley and we are now traveling in limbo"?

Seeing tooooooooooooo many creepy shows like that, made that thought toooooooo hard to handle...;)


Try not to think about THAT as one kept moving through that creepy stuff...!



Happily it turned out not to be true!

We did finally get to see some great scenery and even an amusing sign.

The best was the sight of the QuAppelle Valley and its lakes. This photo was taken from their web site.


Our first point of interest was finding the place we were staying at...

They offered us a great price on the rooms [discount if you were there for the symposium] so we booked for 3 days. Mainly because one of the special guest at this symposium was the author of the Saskatchewan Ghost stories, Jo-Anne Christensen. She was speaking late on Sunday, about her new book which was being released on the 12th, and we wanted to be there to hear her.

The first challenge was the stairs and our luggage! Both of us felt like we were going to die by the time we got to our room. The rooms were clean but had a bit of a smokey smell [we did order a smoking room...for PoD] and the view out of the window was of a flag on a hill...closer inspection showed the rooftop and air conditioning units.

The window was clean inside but the outside was pretty grimy and the day always looked gloomy.

 The first point of order was to show our mascots to their warm resting place...

We had no plans on staying in the room. We wanted to tour around, see the town and find the old Fort Sanitarium. This was the sanitarium that the paranormal group had recorded and we wanted to see the site for ourselves...maybe take some pictures?

We never did find the place. We did get to drive part way around the lake but our interest was finding the sanitarium. Seeing as we had planned on stay the 3 days we figured there would be plenty of time to see it...with directions.

We did see lots of gorgeous homes. It's kind of like cabins at the lake but these could never be classified as cabins. I knew PoD would love the area and I even liked it...very scenic.

Driving around the town area we spotted some great gardening/landscaping ideas.

One that appealed to me were my kind of flowers and I thought it looked very creative.

Many will call it tacky.

I like that fact that there would be no bees!

The other point of interest was this sunken yard...

It looks like they removed the dirt, as the places around them were street level, like their house was. The thing against it for me was the fact of no privacy. People walking by could look in...like we did. Another thought was flooding? Other than those things, it did look kind neat seeing it in the middle of town.


Another unusal sight was an unusual looking car...

It looked pretty special from far away but up close...this is one example of detailing gone wrong!

This guy must own shares in the Canadian Tire Auto Accessories! Some of the stuff include those screw-on ovals? What a waste of a nice car. We overheard the guy say that his 4 tires cost him 5000.00! They don't even have much tire to them...they are all rim! This one car that won't be easy to hide...;)

I did take some close-ups for some of the decals looked like ones that I would add to my collection.

We finally went to see where the symposium was being held.
It was on the backside of the inn and no public access through it. One had to go outside and around to the back in order to get in.

Calling Lakes did a wonderful job of setting it up. It takes lots of work to put one of those things together and their group is pretty tiny. We had offered our help but they wanted to do it themselves and that was okay too.

The inn had kept that room decorated [wedding] so it made it look great [in my books...I LOVE lights] they even got to use the head table on a small stage area for the special guests  and authors to sign their stuff. The main center floor held the merchandise booths and the outer areas hosted the booths for the psychics, mediums, etc.

 My only complaint was the lack of total privacy while in the booths. Some people can get pretty upset [me] when doing these session. So, I wanted more privacy. I ended up not going to any of them for that reason.

With time on our hands PoD and I checked out the bars in the inn. We found that it was a rough area of town and hanging out at the bar might be crazy on the weekend with reports of fights, rapes...etc. Of course we found this out after we had checked them out. They did look good during the daylight as I even tried a hard drink. All who know me know I can't drink because of the Diabetes but do manage to have a lite beer once a year.

I had been craving a Caesar!

The first Caesar tasted crappy and I drank maybe half of it. We tried another place and I tried another Caesar. It tasted a bit better but didn't go down well so I didn't finish it either. So I maybe had a full drink. We did meet the paranormal group later for a drink and met some mediums. I think I managed to have a half a beer then.

We made it a short evening as we were tired from the drive and they were tired from the set-up, but we all promised to get together and party the next night.

Too tired to even shower...we hit the sack.

The next morning I was up early [4:00]...not feeling to good and decided to relax with a long soak in the tub. In anticipation of this soak I had brought along bath salts and bubbles for this long awaited event.

Only to find......THERE WAS NO HOT WATER!!!!

WTF!!!

I was some kind of mad person at that point!

Feeling crappy didn't help either!

Sugars were fine, so I figured it had to be because of the alcohol...the symptoms were the same. So I took a gravol and went back to bed.

I couldn't sleep!

I usually spend those early morning hours exploring the town on foot but I didn't feel safe after hearing about the craziness around this place. Besides I was still not feeling that good.

Eventually PoD did get up and wasn't too happy hearing about the NO HOT WATER situation.

How would you like to start the day with a cold sponge bath!

When asked about the NO HOT WATER we heard that their hot water tank was pooched...

Was prosmised that it would be seen to ASAP.

Needing breakfast, we tried to go into the inn's restaurant, only to find it CLOSED...permanently!

One of the reasons we booked this place was that it had a restaurant!

The bar was operational but offered up no meals!

We now had to drive around to find a place in a hurry as the symposium opened up at 9:00 and we didn't want to miss a thing.

Food out of the way we rushed back and got there just in time of the opening.

Here's what it looked like...

The vendor's booths were loaded with books, crystals, rocks, metaphysical supplies, jewelery, tetrahedrons and mystic mirrors. All dealing with the psychic and paranormal. The psychic booths hosted various things such as medium readings, readers using the pendulum or tarot cards, angel readings, palmistry, astrology and spiritual readings.

Also being offered were presentations on these topics: out of body experiences, remote viewing, quantum physics, cattle mutilations slide show, hauntings, channeling, hypnosis, group session on past life regression, Monroe Institute Teachings, crystal therapy, palmistry and astrology.There was a charge of toonie to sit in on a session.

These sessions were spread out over the two day period and we only had to wait for each one's time. The only thing that was of no interest to me was the slide show on the cattle mutilation but it tweeked PoD's interest. It was the first on the agenda so PoD stayed to watch the show and I went to lay down.

Before that, we got to meet Jo-Anne Christensen. PoD bought her book and got it signed. It was nice talking with her as there wasn't a line-up yet and she could spare the time. In her book she does a write-up on the paranoraml hunters and has featured both our friends the Sask Ghost Hunters Society and Calling Lakes Paranormal Investigators in it.

It is a MUST READ!


After my 4 hours nap, I felt much better and well rested. I wanted to have a shower but there still wasn't any hot water!

While I was out PoD was making herself busy doing what ever the hell that she did? She said wasn't too happy with the cattle mutilation slide show and his presentation. She said that this is one guy you don't want to pay to do his presentation...he just ran the slides, offered no commentation on the photos or would take questions.


PoD actually had to wake me up and would have left me sleep, only the Sask Ghost Hunters Society had arrived and wanted to see me. I went down to find that Miles and Chad had climbed up to the top of the hill [not the one with the flag] across the highway from the inn. Chad had told Miles about the old cementery up there and that he had to see it. Personally I would have drove there to see it rather than climb to it, like they did, but then they are much younger than me and in better shape...;)


We had a good chat while standing in the parking lot. They hadn't planned on staying and had only traveled there to meet JoAnne in person. Saying goodbye they left.

PoD and I now had nothing to do.

We did our touring...

I had lost interest in attending any of the presentators...

PoD was tired...

It was supper time, we had made plans to meet up with the Callin Lakes group and a few of the new people later for a few drinks...

We ate...

Had more time on our hands...

PoD was tired...

I wasn't...

She slept...


STILL NO HOT WATER!

I read...

I fell asleep...

Woke-up...woke up PoD...

She didn't want to...

We cancelled...

Next morning...

STILL NO HOT WATER!!!!!


NOT A HAPPY CAMPER!


NO  soaks in the tub!

NO hot showers!

NO close restaurant to go have early morning coffee!


We had planned to stay another day but we had, had it!


So it was a pissed off QoH who did the check out!


Lets say there was some hot tempers, mine and the check out broad!



Lately I have notice [in our town too] that a lot of the inns/motels/hotels are now owned/runned by people who don't speak very good english. They generally have english speaking staff that do the talking them for them and I AM OKAY WITH THAT. This was no different here.

I was looking for finacial compensation for having to live with NO HOT WATER for the entire stay. I was ticked that we were ending our stay due to the inconvience of not being clean!

The snippy little clerk told me that I had already got a discount due to the symposium and that I should be happy with that! Well I told her that it was
a dicount with HOT WATER INCLUDED and that I had paid for the accessability to it! We bickered for quite a bit and she got madder...you figure the place was HERS and it was coming out of her pocket?

She then finally told me that I would have to talk to the owner.

I said "fine, will she be able to understand me"?

The annoying clerk took it the wrong way...saying that it was a prejudical remark...

The whole time we had done business with this clerk upon arriving not once did the owner speak. When spoken to by the staff they just motioned with their hands...

So it was more an observance than a bad remark!


I AM NOT A PREJUDICE PERSON! I lived with prejudism against my family all my growing up years, so I would NEVER IMPLY IT EITHER!

I guess this girl drags the "prejudice" topic when things go bad for her.

I did talk to the owner and she just nodded and handed me 10.00 [should have been 20.00]!

Shaking my head in disbelief I grabbed and left telling them they had lost my business if we come back next year!

It wasn't a great win...but a winanyways!

The trip home wasn't eventful...

Happily NO FOG either...

One on the first things I did when I got home was have a HOT shower!


Next year the group wants us to help out...they really did need it after all!