We went to Regina to visit family from August 15 - 25. Visiting family is fun but it means I wasn't keeping my online diary up to date. So this post was actually written in late September, from my extremely sketchy notes. I debated whether to fill in these gaps. I guess you know my decision now.
I spent a lovely morning in the backyard reading as the temperatures rose and rose. It's an extremely hot and muggy day today.
We took the dogs for a walk over to Rosemont school so Candy could throw balls for Tucker inside the rink boards. She trains them but doesn't trust the dogs to come back, so only lets them off leash inside the rink. In any event, she stopped throwing after barely four minutes because she thought Tucker was getting overheated. He still looked ready to rock, but who knows.
One final look around before we got packed. Regina's got a problem on its hand with the foliage. Quite famously, Regina is known for having hand planted the hundred thousand or so trees that grow here. The city sits the middle of grassland prairie after all. Well, all those trees are reaching the end of life, and the extreme weather is stressing them more than usual. Lots of dying branches, topped foliage, etc.
In the evening we went to Victoria Park where the trees might even be in worse shape. They're among the oldest elms in the city, planted soon after the 1912 tornado, and they seem to be left to die. All over the city, the trees all seem to be the same age. There are no 30 year old trees to fill in, or 50 year old trees or 10 year old trees. New plantings are more likely to be vandalized than cared for.
The net effect is the Regina looks like a decaying city. A city that doesn't belong on this land.
Or, it may be that I'm tired, have eaten poorly, walked less and am just ready to go home.
PS - our original flight home tomorrow was cancelled. It's going to be a long day.