A few days resting up at Donna's

 

Donna's house

 

We haven't posted for a few days, just relaxing and resting up from the long trip west. We're so happy to have made it out to BC and Donna's place once again. (Donna is Cathie's sister)

On our visit here 2 years ago we started seeing wildlife right away. Not so this time. The first few days seeing a quail was about it. Today (Friday) we started to see larger wildlife again. 

Donna's little guard dog (Sergie) has been quite agitated each time he's gone outside. We finally saw a coyote Wednesday, and our theory is that coyotes have been around, and the sheep don't come by then. In fact, a few nights ago a group of coyotes killed a small deer right in a neighbor's yard, and maybe they moved on then. Sergie isn't as agitated now, and the sheep are back.

Meanwhile, we've had a few excursions:

A visit to one of the many local wineries

On the way to the winery we finally saw some wildlife

 

As usual, one of the pastimes has been a cribbage tourney between Cathie and Donna. Donna has been the big winner until today, when switching chairs has seemed to give Cathie an edge. Donna's still ahead in game wins and skunks though, right now:

 

Every couple of days Sergie gets an off-leash walk in the nearby dog-friendly area:

 

Intimidating sign, there has been some instability in that area

The white house above had some slippage in their side yard

Lots of dramatic building lots here

 

Donna's house is in a really pretty (and stable) area:

 

Always yard work in season though

Donna filling the back yard birdbath

 

One day the gals had an outing with lunch out, and came back changed:

Before

   

After trim

Nice lunch spot

Finally today some sheep arrived. These are all rams, the ewes are off raising the current lambs in private:

First they appeared in the back yard this morning, but didn't stay long

Later this afternoon they came up the neighbours driveway

8 in all

They headed right around to Donna's front yard to a rose bush they like

Once the rose flowers are gone, time to go

Somebody make a decision - where to now?

Head across the road

On their way to greener (or rosier) pastures

 

We're planning to stay through the weekend and start heading for home Tuesday.

 

 

We made it to Donna's! Golden BC to Okanagan Falls BC via Rogers Pass

 

It was a good night camped at the Golden Municipal campground. No train noise overnight, at least none we heard. Before heading out we took a few pics around the campground:

The Kicking Horse river was running high and hard

Log debris in the river

Construction work going on at the town bridge

 

A lot of the travelling pictures today are from the Rogers Pass area. The area offers great mountain views, easier to take pictures than the Kicking Horse pass was:

 

Lots of trucks out today

 

  

  

 

One of several snow sheds on Rogers Pass (we think 7)

You can see the side of the snow shed curving with the road

 

Of course there was construction, one of life's certainties when travelling this time of year. These sites had several little waterfalls cascading down the mountainside into the sites:

The waterfalls originate as meltwater from places like this

 The roads get interesting sometimes in the lower elevations:

I haven't been sending out daily post reminders, as some people thought that wasn't necessary. We likely will only post every few days while we're at Donna's. I'll send a reminder periodically. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Maple Creek SK to Golden BC. We're in the mountains now.

Huge rock cut on Trans Canada Highway 

After a really pleasant night at the Maple Creek Visitor Info parking area (no trains or traffic audible at all), we set off fairly early. Lots of kms to go yet.

 

Pretty soon we were heading into threatening skies:

Thankfully the dark clouds had moved and dissipated by the time we arrived. We did get to see a couple of nice rainbows though. Each was a double, but one was very faint: 

Approaching Calgary we ran into another stormy-looking sky. Once again managed to stay out of most of it:

  

Once the storms cleared off and we were west of Calgary, we started to see mountains:

Those "eyes" support the animal bridge above

I should explain that we stuck to the main Trans Canada Highway all the way. Usually we would depart from the TCH at Medine Hat AB, and head west on Hwy 3. 

This is very likely going to be the last time we drive out this way though, so we decided to see the TCH through Kicking Horse Pass one last time. A lot of work has been done to the highway through here over the past several years. 

We were too busy watching the views and the traffic for pictures through there today though.  

A tiring day, and pretty much my daily mileage led us to the Golden Municipal campground. Never been here before. It's very nice, if you can tolerate train noise, as there are tracks right across the Kicking Horse river from the campground.

Wild Rose, Alberta's provincial flower

A very nice walking trail runs along the river. In one direction it goes right into downtown Golden. It's a long trail and we only sampled it:

 

RR tracks run on the other side of the river. A crew is doing work on the rails with much specialized equipment and lots of noise. A couple of trains have rumbled by, relatively quietly.