I'm Everywhere Lately, or: Hello, Oak Lake!!

I'll be hitting the road very shortly, so I'll be quick here. Just a few quick tidbits, this and that, you know.

Firstly: hey, check me out! You can't see it in the online version, but there was a picture of me accompanying the article and I was very handsome. You'll just have to take my word for it. David Sanderson had graciously extended the offer to participate on the panel, and it was an absolute pleasure to meet him and his family; it turns out that he's also a local-writer-slash-librarian, so he... aw, crap, he cornered the market on my schtick years before I even cultivated it. Foiled again! Curse you, Sanderson! curse youuuuuuuuu

Anyway, yeah, great guy. Free Press wine writer Ben MacPhee-Sigurdson is a great dude to hang out with as well, so once we all mutually agreed not to stack the plastic cups and cut each other with them the event went swimmingly. And, hey, my picture was in the newspaper, so that gives me another two or three months before my folks go back to questioning what I'm doing with my life.

The paper in question came out towards the beginning of the Long Weekend, which I obviously spent up in the Interlake because the city is inherently dangerous this time of year. I popped up to Gimli to have a look at the Islendingadagurinn sand castles, some of which were intricate and finely detailed--





--and some of which were... not.



Sunday evening also split Gimli Park into two sides, an adorable little alternative folk festival on one end and an adorable little amusement park on the other, which balance each other out more nicely than you would initially assume.







So, that was nice. But no time to sit around! With the Long Weekend now kaput I'm off to visit my Dad out in Oak Lake, about a half-hour west of Brandon, population approximately three-hundred and fifty-nine. You know, I'll never forget my first visit to Oak Lake a couple of years back, there was--




...okay, yeah, there was that, but I'm sure the one bored teenager in Oak Lake was promptly rounded up for questioning.

The village of Oak Lake isn't actually on its titular lake, which is about fifteen kilometers away, but heck if the place doesn't make an effort to be the cutest little lakeless lake town around.











But my absolute highlight of visiting Oak Lake that first time -- and my most crushing disappoinment when it disappeared before my second visit -- was this incredible, almost mythological sight stationed between the doors of the village's one grocery store.





Everyone's a winner! Guaranteed good luck at just a quarter a pop! If that isn't personal enrichment right there, I don't know what is.

Anyway, this was all a very roundabout way of saying that I'll be gone for a few days. Again. So, see you when I get back, true believers!