Road Trip!

We went for a Sunday drive on Monday, which is my Saturday. It was wonderful! We followed the Victoria Trail which is on the north side of the North Saskatchewan River and started out as a trail the Indians used thus making it the oldest road in Alberta that is still in use. I will expand on the trail as I process and upload photos, for now here are just a few scenic shots from yesterday.

Click any photo to enlarge.

I think we counted 23 (edit) Sandhill Cranes (Thanks Leah) in total, too many for one shot.

I liked the pattern that resulted here.



We stopped here for supper, as I was walking up to the bank, a raven with an eagle below it came up from the valley! Couldn't have been more than 30 feet away from me and right at my height! I didn't have the camera on alas and all I could do was point and sputter.


We stopped at Astotin Lake at Elk Island Park as the sun was setting.

Just a taste of what we saw, I will post more as the days go by.

Have a good day all.

Jasper in a day

I love Alberta's Rocky Mountains and though I don't get to visit them as often as I would like, it is nice knowing they are just a few hours drive away.

This time of year you can see the babies as they are learning to dodge traffic. (Mountain Goats for anyone not familiar)









They all made it safely to the other side of the road to get a drink and check out the browsing there.










We journeyed to Jasper National Park in my friends 15 year old Suburban, with no air conditioning and a mysterious new squeak. Fortunately as we drove along the clouds cover was enough to keep the temperatures bearable.









Once in the park the sun started to peek through every once in awhile and made for a really pleasant day.













This is the view from where we stopped to have our picnic lunch. It was a bit blurry, so I desaturated it and was quite happy.









Same spot, different direction. Have you noticed I am avoiding naming any of the mountains? No? Good. However this is a really cool site to check out the names.







We headed up to Maligne Canyon and hiked a bit, but I will save that for another day, as this is going to be quite long as it is.












As we were gazing in wonder at the beautiful vistas, I wondered aloud where the elk were. My friend told me they have been having a lot of trouble with the tourists and the elk and so had moved them away from the town.







This is the only bear we ever caught sight of, his name is Jasper, like the town.
















I was disappointed that they had moved all of the elk, until that is, we came upon this lovely young lady on the way up to Pyramid Lake. Sadly we didn't get to the lake, the truck started to make funny noises and we figured the lake will be there next time we come through.

Her brother was on the other side of the road, but I didn't get an opportunity at him, very narrow road.







As we were heading back out of the park we saw a few more goats. This one against the coal seam is oblivious to the multitude of semis roaring by him.









Then we were blessed with this glorious sunset to finish off a wonderful day.



In the next few days, I will post about the hike that almost killed me.






Have a good day all.

My Road Trip Monday

I went to visit my sister, The Bag Lady who still lives in the area we grew up in. As she posts anonymously, all I can say is that it is a four-ish hour drive to get there from Edmonton, but we had lots of fun. Maybe one day I will convince her to come out and join the MTM.

Northern Alberta is full of rolling hills and boreal forests, interspersed with creeks and rivers in deep valleys. Pictures do not really do it justice and when traveling by the generosity of other people, there were not many opportunities to stop on the way there.

The return trip was a bit different, we took a different hwy & we were able to stop a couple of times and there were beautiful vistas to attempt to capture. That is when it wasn't raining - almost sleeting! We travelled back the long way in hopes of seeing our beautiful Rockies and were treated to some wonderful scenery. Alas the cost of gas and the short time available to us didn't allow us to do more than glimpse them from the foothills.

I put together a little video, I hope you enjoy it.




I will over the next while post some of the stills I took on the trip. There are so many to choose from that I would have wound up with a post that took two days to read.

As you may have noticed, Alberta has a lot of forest and yes, the softwood lumber industry is going strong. So is our gas & oil industry which is why it is a bit of a shock that our gas prices jumped because of "IKE"!

I hope this finds all of my Southern readers safe and protected from Ike's visit.

Have a good day all.

Not exactly a My Town Monday post, but if you would like to read about towns from all over the world drop by Travis Erwins Blog, he has links set up.