October 5

Our last week here….

It’s hard to believe that it’s already time for us to start thinking about heading home. Our time here has gone incredibly fast and it’s been a wonderful experience. If all goes well, we hope to come back next year and look after the campsite again.

(I'm in Canmore now after doing laundry this a.m. and realized I forgot to download new pictures from my camera....guess we'll have to settle for boring old animal pictures you might have seen before!!!)

This morning I was up early and went to see the moose for the last time. They are all paired up now with their mates. I first saw a cow at the mud wallow, then a cow and bull in the distance. I decided dto drive down the road further and ended up seeing a cow and bull quite close up. The only problem was the bull was lying in the grass and I couldn’t get a good shot of him. I did take a few more photos though and then headed back to Engadine. There was a cow and a bull quite close to the road. The bull was huge with a rack that was easily four feet across. He and the cow were wandering the meadow munching on grasses and when the sun came out, they both lay down in the long grass. People might start calling me the Moose Lady of Kananaskis, but I just can’t seem to get enough of them. They are so amazing.

Last Sunday we met up with Jamie in Calgary and headed over to see my cousin’s daughter, Candice and all who were gathered there. My cousins Pat and Cathy were there along with Cathy’s husband Bob and several other cousins and great cousins (if that’s what you call them??) Kim and Kristine and her family arrived shortly afterwards and we had a really nice visit with all of them. Pat’s husband was off hunting moose with some of his boys up at Slave Lake, so we didn’t get to see them, but had a nice time after all. When I walked in the door, Cathy, Pat and Candice all commented on how much I look like my Mom…I’ll take that as a compliment! It’s been probably 25 years since I’ve seen Pat and Cathy and it was good to reconnect. Some of them are going to Puerto Vallarta in February about the time we usually go…who knows…maybe we’ll meet up there with them.

It was supposed to rain today but it turned out to be really nice. Tom has gone to Boulton Creek to hand in our registrations for the week and fill up the gas and propane. I’m doing laundry and getting groceries so we’ll get all our stuff done in one day away. We’ve got quite a bit of clean-up work to do this week as Monday is our last day. I had hoped to get together with my Aunt Esther this week, but it just doesn’t seem like it will work out. Closing up the campground means a fair amount of heavy work moving picnic tables and loading up supplies that we can’t leave over the winter. They get so much snow here that when they come to clean up the sites in the spring, they usually can’t see where the fire pits are so we need to move the picnic tables over top of them so they don’t run into them with the plows. Good exercise, eh!

We need to stop in at Boulton on Tuesday and then we’ll head home from there. With luck the weather will hold and we won’t have to worry about snow on the roads. Right now the scenery is fabulous with all of the trees at their autumn best. The experience here has been tremendous, but it will be good to be home for a little while.