From Sunrise to Mid-day at the Bed & Breakfast, Twin Butte

This was sunrise at Dungarvan Creek B&B our first morning. (www.dungarvancreek.com)

The clouds were red but the day turned out to be beautiful.

The property had a pond on which we saw Coots, Northern Shovellers, Pintail or Black Ducks maybe, & Mallards. We saw Swallows, Cedar Waxwing, huge Hawks again, goldfinch (there is a photo here of grass with two goldfinch in it.

My great delight, like a piece of sky dropping in flight, was a male Mountain Bluebird which was joined by two female bluebirds and we were able to watch them for some time.

A mother Moose and her calf came by a few times.

The photo of the window was our view from the breakfast table - in the main house - overlooking the pond.

Our cabin is pictured with the HONKING huge truck in front. It was the only vehicle we could get from the insane rental company (a story I won't go into here) and I have cursed gas-guzzling trucks for years but in a curious way it seemed appropriate to be driving a truck through ranch country....not that I have changed my tune about gas guzzling trucks but it is safer if you happen to bump into a moose or elk or bear etc.

I hope you don't mind so many more pictures of the big skies.

Still to post pictures of Waterton and horseback riding.

Southern Alberta & Big Skies

I travelled to Southern Alberta for the first time this week - with my friend Jill who is visiting.

This is the first of several postings of our road trip through Kananaskis, then following the Cowboy Trail to Waterton National Park on the Montana Border.

I am ready to move to southern Alberta - except for the wind (frequent blows of 160kph).

The landscape is stunning, the skies are stunning, the clouds are fascinating.

I fell in love the the place.

Seriously!!! if I was 30 years younger I would move to Twin Butte and work in Waterton Park or something to be in that landscape. Charley would go snaky - urban boy that he is.

We stayed at a great B&B and at night it was like being in a sensory deprivation tank. No sound...absolute silence, pitch black and millions of stars. Jill was out in the black night with a red-bulbed headlamp on her head to identify stars and constellations.

I was up at sunrise (photos of the B&B to follow in a later posting).

We saw more hawks - and they were huge hawks of various breeds - in a particular corridor of highway than I may have ever seen in total in my whole life.

The first photo shows the rain we could see that we were approaching. You can see for miles and miles.

I will post soon the photos of our 4 hour horseback ride on very narrow paths, rock strewn paths, on precipitous sides of mountains......

KANANASKIS COUNTRY - over 4000 Square km of wilderness

It was a very good thing that these Mountain sheep (or goats) were at an intersection because cars had to stop .... these guys were on the highway & on 3 sides of the corner. There is more text at the end of the pictures to tell you where we were.

It was a breathtaking road trip.

The plaque a few pictures into this blog refers to two mountains (in the photo following the shot of the plaque) named after 2 officers killed in WWW1. I found it very moving.

We took the most spectacular drive today (about 130 km in total)

through what is known as Kananaskis Country. It was a trip through

3 Provincial Parks - Bow Valley Wildland Prov. Pk, Spray Valley Prov. Park, &

Peter Lougheed Prov. Park.

Each one more breathtaking than the previous one.

AND - I saw my first bear....safely from the car. It was a black bear and it was hightailing it away from the road so we saw its rump and its back...but unmistakably a black bear.

The pictures do not capture the beauty of what we saw every mile of the way. But it is a trip we will definitely take again and take more pictures.