I wouldn't recommend tasting lake water. XD That's a great way to get sick.

I've also wanted to go up to the Yukon at some point! I really want to see the arctic in the summer. About 90% of our total population lives within 200 kilometers of the US border. Sounds like you'd even given the thought of moving up here some consideration!

I don't think it was the sun that fucked Venus over, I think it was (from what I remember hearing, I could be totally wrong) a super volcanic event that trapped all the heat and utterly changed the climate. I also think Mars used to have oceans. I'm firmly in the camp that life on Earth started here and evolved here. There'd be traces of civilization on Mars if there were anything like that, and our solar system is only 4 billion years old, and humans as a species have only been around for I think around 100-200 thousand years. We've only been able to go into space for around half a century now. I can't imagine other life evolving elsewhere in that time frame faster. The main issue with the ancient astronaut theory is it discounts the paleontological evidence of the evolution of our species and how utterly long it takes to travel from solar system to solar system; so far, they've pinpointed about 11 billion planets that are in Earth-like orbits and have similar chemical compositions, but the closest one is 12 light years away. Without actually visiting the planet, you have no idea if it can support human life or not, and for the amount of technology that would be required to make that journey (be able to provide food and recycle water for 12 years minimum, assuming a one way trip, as well as a sizable colony population which would have to be in the thousands to have a sustainable population, with enough genetic diversity to minimize the health concerns, and so on), as well as being able to know how to work the new land, decide what's safe to eat, establishing infrastructure, and so on. Assuming all of that lined up, why did we start off in the stone age instead of advancing from whatever we came to Earth with? If we go off of other aliens dumping us off to save our species and letting us evolve, you're still dealing with the same logistical problems and the insane costs in both time, resources, and maybe even crew member's lives to seed a planet that likely is hundreds, if not thousands of years away at light speed where the resource drain and maintenance requirements are prohibitive and likely to the point of impossibility? You also have to make sure that humans would survive and not just go extinct in a couple generations because they didn't know how to cope with this strange new planet. o_o

Sorry, I'm not ranting or lecturing, I'm just thinking aloud. >_> I'm not trying to rain on anyone's parade. I just think about this stuff a lot. I'm a very skeptical person who is utterly fascinated by scientific stuff.

BACK TO FOSSILS!

Oh yeah, Earth had a stage where pretty much everything was supersized, the megafauna stage. Even Dragonflies were the size of dogs! If you want more evolution hilarity, the T-Rex's closest direct descendant is the fucking chicken. I am not even making that up. And absolutely! It's got the blues, greens, reds, and yellows! I have it under some bright overhead lights so it catches it nicely. I'm a friggin' magpie; I love shiny things.

Ocean currents and wind patterns play a big role in it, too. British Columbia is a very rainy and temperate province in the South, and that gets carried over the Rockies. However, Alberta's also the province that gets the most annual sunshine of all of them. Sometimes it gets so dry wildfires break out semi-frequently. It's kinda bad. 

It's too late for that cactus, that was when I lived with my parents. It was really soft, though...