Trip to Toronto

Once again, I'm off to Toronto. the sun is just above the horizon with Mt. Baker in the distance. One would think that I get bored with the scenery ... but, no. The season, the time of day and the weather make the landscape a wonder of geology. The Fraser Valley spreads out with the coastal mountains rising above the farmland.

I've been fascinated with the Rocky Mountain Trench. It is more than a thousand miles long, running north/south as a divide between the BC mountains and the Rocky Mountains. Millions of years ago the convection patterns deep under the rock of our mantle, pulled the earth apart. At the widest point it is 46 kilometers across.The mountain patterns rise as far as you can see, most rows running north & south, indicative of the push of Teutonic plates from west to east.

As we near Calgary, the Rockies abruptly end and the Alberta Foot Hills begin.

Farmland is soon stretching out and will continue for the next thousand miles.

The towers of Calgary rise with the Rockie Mts. in the background ...

Intricate river drainage systems contrast with the snow.

Clouds part as we cross Great Lakes.

Rivers and farmland stretch out.

And we head in to Toronto.

The next few days were spent in the hotel where the CQA/ACC Board worked on policies for the National Organization. We have Quilt Canada in Calgary at the end of April, 2010. Pans are being made for Quilt Ontario in London 2011 and Quilt Canada in Halifax for 2012. And three days later ... I headed west again. The Great Lakes are lined with a lace of ice.

This is what happened when I played with Photoshop .. one of Mother Nature's abstracts. This is part of southern Manitoba, near Lake Superior... shallow lakes ground out by glaciers.

The trip was a 'milk run'. We dropped in to Winnipeg, with its impressive airport building. The River drainage shows clearly against the snow.This one looks like a tree.Later we had a lay over in Calgary ... which seems to have become the 'hub' of western Canada. And then, home again to B.C.