Thursday, August 28, 2008

On the Road Again

The Bag Lady did go to the mountains with the Rancher yesterday. It was a 6 hour trip, and she took a lot of photographs. Unfortunately, the weather wasn't very co-operative and it was cloudy and dim or perhaps it was the Bag Lady who was dim and the pictures are not very good.

She did manage to videotape a portion of their trip. This extremely long video is a small part of the trip, but it was the reason they went..... to pick up a load of mats from an oil lease. In some areas around here, they have to build roads across swamps in order to haul the oil-drilling equipment into a well site. The easiest way to do that is to lay down wooden mats to drive on. When they are finished, they haul the mats out again in order to re-use them. The mats are made of oak, and are very heavy.

This particular video shows the trip from the main road down a very steep, very long road to the oil lease in order to pick up a load of mats. The Bag Lady had to do a lot of editing to shorten the enormous amount of video she took. Even then, the video is around 5 minutes long. Do not feel obligated to watch it. There is no music, and a lot of inane, sometimes inaudible conversation. On the other hand, if you are a big fan of noise, dust, and trees, you'll love this! The video also does not impart exactly how steep, rough and narrow the road was.


17 comments:

Anonymous said...

Im so excited.

for the video.

for my medal.

can I choose a color?!

You know I adore the snippets of your world, BL.

Penny said...

I always learn something when I come here, it's the best! Dying to see the video but am going to have to wait til this evening as vids don't work on my office PC :0(

SWAMPS! Are there man-eating beasties in the swamps?

TA x

Reb said...

Lovely video Sis! I get a medal too! It wasn't too long actually.

Leah J. Utas said...

When may I expect my medal?
You did a good job with the video, dfBag Lady. Loved the shot of the rig mat being loaded.

HC said...

Medal me up!

Anonymous said...

I liked the video....those sounds are relaxing to me. Very good! :)

the Bag Lady said...

Miz - Colour? Why, gold, of course!

TA - I try to stay away from the swamps, myself. They are usually full of mosquitoes big enough to suck a cow moose while standing flat-footed (at least, that's what my dad always said!:)) - so yeah, I guess there are man-eating beasties in the swamps! Hope you get a chance to see the video later.

Reb - I had a terrible time chopping huge sections out of it to make it so short!

dfLeah - I had to cut the part where the fella who was loading them had to take one off the road (because he couldn't count, but that's another story) and drop it a couple of times to get the mud off....that was kinda dusty (understatement!)

Haley - thanks for watching! Now I have to make some medals....

Mark - glad you enjoyed it - hope it didn't relax you to sleep!

Missicat said...

Wow! I defintely "felt" every bump with the way the camera shook - very real! Love the big truck tires - with chains!
Where's my medal???

the Bag Lady said...

Missicat - gee, maybe I should have left some of the really bad shaking and bumping in the video! (Watching it actually made me nauseous!)
Hmmm, must make medals...know a good source of gold?

Sarah said...

Those were great ideas you gave me for meals this weekend! Have fun camping!

the Bag Lady said...

Sarah - hope they help! We are re-thinking our weekend plans after listening to the forecast....if it rains as much and is as cold as they are predicting, staying home is sounding more appealing!
Hope your weekend is great!

Anonymous said...

I watched it. My favorite part was when you laughed (after saying you were videotaping it), cause it seemed like you got over some of your crankiness.

new*me said...

Thanks for sharing your world with us today :)

Anonymous said...

Medals all round.
Looks like some of the old logging roads up north here. Except we have no hills...

Hilary said...

Where's my medal? No, wait.. I'll need a chest for that...

Christine said...

That shot of the man loading up the tuck from the rear view mirror was straight up cinematography, BL. I'm not joking! Was that the rancher, btw?

the Bag Lady said...

Tricia - thanks! It's amazing how much crankiness can dissolve when you are in the mountains!

Annette - thanks for watching.

Geo - I was amazed at how many trails there are through the ever-dwindling bush now - some logging roads, but most oil roads.

Hil - medal in the mail... or not!

Christine - thanks! I was forced to film in the mirror because I wasn't allowed to get out of the truck (didn't have a hard hat or safety vest).
Yup, that fella throwing wrappers was indeed the Rancher!