September 18

Well, it’s a good thing I took pictures of Autumn yesterday because it’s Winter today. The forecast is good though with the sun coming out and temperatures in the 70’s by Saturday…guess Summer will be back by then……when is Spring???

Yes, we had about 2 inches of snow last night. It started with rain late last night and sometime overnight it magically turned to snow. This morning when I woke up I could only describe it as “pouring” snow. Large beautiful wet flakes. Oso has experienced frozen snow last June when we arrived here, but never this white stuff that is covering the ground and everything else. He went out this morning and sniffed and licked and played for quite a while in it. Tom took the broom and shoved the snow off the pop-up screen tent that we have…guess we’ll have to take it down put that away when summer comes again this weekend.

I went to Mount Engadine again yesterday, this time in the afternoon. I didn’t expect to see any animals, but ended up spotting a sleepy coyote and a bull moose. The coyote was dozing in the sun all curled up in a little clearing. I got a few shots of him before he got nervous and left. I saw the bull-moose as I was walking back to the truck. I just caught a quick glimpse of “black” moving through the trees and really wasn’t sure if it was a bear or a moose. Turns out it was a big bull and I followed him down to the wallow below the Engadine Lodge. There is a mineral in the soil there that the moose really seem to like and he stayed there for a while letting me take pictures. He was knee deep in the muck and quite enjoying himself slurping up the liquid on top of the mud. After a while he started off across the open field and so I went back onto the road to take a few pictures from there. He was pretty awesome.

We’ve had a pretty quiet week with maybe a dozen or so campers each night this past weekend. That makes for less work and more free time. Today we’re going to go to Balzac, near Airdrie, and pick up the parts for our awning that we ordered a while ago. Luckily when our awning was lost in a windstorm, the vinyl wasn’t torn and only the struts were bent so they were easy enough to replace. Tom can put the whole thing back together and it will cost us less than $200. That’s a lot less than we thought we’d end up paying. It will be nice to have it back in place for our trip south. (Tom did put it together with much cursing and a few bruised fingers from winding the spring...he can fix anything!!!)

We really haven’t figured out what we want to do for the winter yet. We know we want to see all of the kids and my Mom, and then go south, but we’re not really sure where we’re going. Tom got a book about Texas and it sounds like there’s some interesting things to see there…we both love New Mexico so we’ll likely spend some time there…we’ve got friends staying in Apache Junction in Arizona. Guess we’ll figure it out once we get on the road. The big question for us is what to do with the house…not sure whether to rent it out or just leave it. I hate to see it empty over the winter, but maybehaving a friend take care of it for us will work out best. We’ll figure it out.

The lake is going down about six inches a day. It’s been well above its usual level for the summer because of the hydro plants here being down for most of the past few months and because of the work on the Canyon Dam. We drove down there yesterday to take a look and it was pretty interesting. Today, with inches of snow on the ground, they are pouring 16 yards of cement (five trucks cuz they can only put about 3 yards in each truck)…they need to lower the trucks down a road about 200 feet with a huge cat, then pull them back up when they are empty. The road is steep and there’s no way the trucks could get up and down by themselves because they are so heavy with the cement in them. It’s quite an operation. They expect to be done their work by the end of October. Tom insisted that I add the picture of the Pit Stop and ask Alyssa if she's branching out from Espresso Stands to porta-potties.........

Tom carved me a couple of beautiful walking sticks and I decorated them with do-dads that I found at the thrift shop…when I go walking I take both of them and hook Oso to my waist and get a good workout walking and pumping the sticks. Oso is pretty good, but sometimes we have to stop cuz he can’t resist a little chew on the sticks when he slows down enough to notice them.

Tom says it’s time to get going to Balzac so I’d better wrap this up. The snow has stopped now so it’s a good time to get going. Maybe we’ll even drive into Calgary and see Jamie…we’ll see how the roads are and what the weather looks like later today.

September 21

I didn’t get to post this yet so thought I’d add a bit more to it. I’ve been out moose hunting in the mornings and am awestruck by them. Yesterday I went down early in the morning and watched them till almost noon. When I first arrived two big bulls were eyeing each other to see who would end up with the cow that was hanging round. One bull was on the north side of the creek and the other was on the south side with the cow. The larger of the two huffed and puffed and thrashed his antlers through the brush and the younger bull just watched. In the end the larger bull stayed with the cow, but when he tried to give her all of his attention, she would have none of it and just walked away. The big bull followed her sniffing and rubbing on her but she simply didn’t want him. It was really cool to see. Later on the big moose was back all by himself and he noticed another bull about the same size across the field. He started toward them when the younger bull came out of the bushes and so there were three of them in the field. The younger bull held back and the two big bulls met in the middle of the meadow. The swayed their heads back and forth as they walked and tried to impress each other with their size and prowess. They never did have a physical conflict but must have sorted things out in a moosely manner without confrontation. Each went their separate ways and the young bull still watched from the edge of the meadow. Again…an awesome spectacle to watch.

Tom hasn’t yet come with me in the morning so hasn’t seen the moose there and I really thought he’d enjoy it so we went for a drive down to Engadine last night. As usual, the big bull was there trying his best to impress a pretty young cow who was in the mud wallow. He was sniffing and snorting and finally tried to mount her…nope, she still didn’t want him and shook him off as she walked away. Another cow and calf watched this happening and then walked away across the field after the first cow had rebuked the bull. The bull huffed and puffed and wandered off on his own clearly disappointed in his love life. These moose are the most awesome animals...so big and strong. The bulls are so incredibly immense and their shoulders just bulge with muscles. As close as I got to them (and it wasn’t all that close), it was plenty near enough for me.

Tom really enjoyed watching them and on the way home we happened across a heard of elk. There was a big male with a huge rack of antlers and his harem of about 10 females and calves. It was too dark by then to get a decent picture and the elk were shy and took off into the bush as soon as we got too close. They were the first elk we’ve seen since the day we got here when we saw two of them by the side of the road on the way to Boulton Creek.

I’m posting a couple pictures of our little Pika…(s)he has been busy gathering leaves and ground cover for its nest. I expect they hibernate over the winter, but don’t really know that much about them. I’ll have to read up and find out more. They sure are cute little rascals though

That’s it from the wild and wooly north for now. I’m in town doing laundry and as soon as that’s done will go to the library to post this. Hope all is well with everyone…will be so good to see you all when we get home.