photography – OldPlaidCamper

Contrasts

As I wrote previously, we were fortunate to enjoy mostly blue skies on our trip to the western edge of Vancouver Island. But, it being largely a temperate rainforest location in the PNW, it wasn’t always wall to wall sunshine. There were a couple of almost foggy/definitely misty mornings, times that contrasted pleasantly with the overall brightness.

I’ve included a few photographs this week highlighting those coastal contrasts. What a wonderful spring delight it was to be in the greens and blues of western BC.

We’re back in landlocked AB now, where spring is in the ascendant at last, a time of rising (to near normal) seasonal temperatures, with more than a few rain showers to encourage the emerging plant life to get with being green – or what passes for luxuriant greenery in the space between the mountains and the prairies!

We’re hoping to spend a few days out in the foothills next week, see for ourselves the long awaited switch from chilly late winter (friends in Canmore have – they hope – finally put away snow shovels) to proper mountain spring. It’s a fifteen minute season before full summer…

Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Safe harbour

Wandering around the boat basin on a sunny morning seemed a pleasant way to spend an hour. It helped that the bright blue skies and warm sunshine made the scenes even more colourful. Very cheerful!

The previous day had been very blustery, and the clanging and clanking of masts, as well as the singing lines as the wind blew through the rigging made for a haunting song of sorts.

The eagles appeared to love the weather, sun or rain, blustery or not, and their piercing cries and shrill calls could be heard each day, even over the constant wind.

One morning, just before sun up, several eagles flew up into the trees to the left and right of our campsite. There they perched, offering an occasional cry, for a few minutes, almost if as if they were waiting with me for the sun to appear over nearby Mt. Ozzard.

Fanciful, I know, but they flew off mere moments after the sun’s first rays started to warm the harbour. I raised my coffee cup in acknowledgment, but they were gone, no doubt looking for something more interesting than the robust dark roast.

Rain or shine, wind or calm, Ucluelet Harbour is rarely a dull place!

Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Head west

Leaving the mountains behind us, our task was to find spring, or at least a place with no recent snow on the ground.

So we headed west across mountains, and more mountains, emerging onto the flatland delta, continuing until the road stopped. There, we got on a ferry to cross the Salish Sea to Vancouver Island, disembarked, and headed west once again until the road stopped again.

The end of the road (the end of a rutted and muddy track)

We have found spring (almost summer by west coast standards) in one of our happy places, and, even better, have been catching up with old friends. Hard to imagine we were cooling beer in the snow a week ago.

It feels as if winter has finally let go for real, spring has arrived for sure, and summer isn’t too far around the corner. Camping days ahead!

Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Hoodoo?

We do! If you ever have the opportunity, traveling the Hoodoo Trail in the Drumheller, AB region is an interesting way to discover some amazing geological formations in an arid location.

I imagine it gets pretty busy – and very hot – in the summer months, but we were lucky enough to stop at the formations shared here on a relatively quiet and pleasantly warm midweek spring day. Early in the season as it was, it felt hot after the long slow start to spring – no complaints!

It always amuses me that the area is known as the badlands, and I understand why, but they are some of my favourite lands to visit, with such a different geography and geology. Dinosaur territory if that kind of thing interests you…

We ended our morning with a fine lunch and cold pint at the Last Chance Saloon in nearby Wayne. As with the rock formations, if you ever have a chance to visit, it is great place to stop and cool off.

One of my finest photographs ever, taken through a dusty windshield

Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Beer and chocolate…

…and spring? Hoping for three out of three…

Apparently, this is the good stuff? (*Yes it is!* Mrs. PC)

I’ll keep it brief this week, and confess we’ll be having two out of three of the above this coming long weekend!

Apparently, this is the good stuff? (*Yes it is!* Mr. PC) A wee heavy (a Scottish beer style) and what I’ll be after too much beer and chocolate.

If you choose to celebrate Easter this weekend, enjoy, and even if you don’t, perhaps you’ll have a beer, some chocolate, or maybe even enjoy some spring sunshine where you are?

It is sunny, and it is calendar spring! Taken earlier this week – technically, three for three?

Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

“Yes, I know dogs can’t have chocolate. No, I’m not sulking…)

PS:

Nope, two out of three! Taken yesterday (Thursday) afternoon.

Tall trees and complete quiet (more or less)

Muffled by snow, helped by being a good distance from the main highway and train line, Emerald Lake is a bowl of quiet, tree lined and surrounded by mountains.

Until last week, we hadn’t visited in almost ten years, but little has changed, and it still delights. Ten years is a considerable chunk of a human span, but nothing in mountain measured time. I like mountain terrain, because it keeps you small, and encourages perspective.

Speaking only for myself, lately it’s been a challenge sometimes to go about my business – the business of enjoying almost retirement and having a pleasant time living in western Canada – when it’s the case that there are utter morons (invariably but not exclusively of the right wing nut bar brigade) doing their level best to make bad situations far, far worse. I won’t go into details, you read the news. I generally (and genuinely) do try to keep things chipper on here, but, bloody hell, it’s a mess out there, isn’t it? Ok, stopping there, more or less.

Fanciful I know, but maybe the mountains shake their heads in bemusement, and perhaps even disappointment, at the grasping antics of certain tiny humans. Do mountains concern themselves with small people, particularly those fuelled by ego or narcissism? Probably not. Ok, time to stop.

Petty people, deluded by their own “grandeur” – grandeur, ha! – as if! Oh, come on, the word isn’t grandeur – let’s try greed! I have to laugh at their smallness, their lack of awareness, of what they really signify in the grand scheme. Ok, stopping here, for sure, more or less.

Thank goodness for vast landscapes and quiet places, locations that might remind us nothing lasts forever, and of exactly how big or small we really are…

Thanks for reading – what passes for normal service will resume next week – and I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

On the edge…

…of the city, there is a small wilderness area squeezed between the southwest city limits and the boundary of the Tsuu t’ina Nation. It’s mostly a wooded wetland, located on the north side of the Elbow River, with pathways weaving along and between narrow waterways and tiny ponds.

We were there this week on a bright March morning, enjoying blue skies and temperatures that quickly climbed above freezing. There were hardly any other park users – a few other dog walkers and a jogger who jingled past laden with bear bells. I imagine the bears appreciated the heads up, delighted to hear lunch was approaching? We didn’t see bears or any other big creatures, but there were many geese overhead, and chickadees were our almost constant companions in the sunnier spots. Every now and then we heard the distant tapping of a busy woodpecker.

There was some snow on the ground from a heavy fall a few days earlier, but it was melting away in the strong sun, and, in these bright March days, it feels far more like early spring than late winter, so I guess we’re headed in the right direction!

The park isn’t huge, but it’s more than pleasant enough to be in the almost wild for a couple of hours on a midweek morning. We’ll revisit again when it is spring proper, check out the new greenery, smell the sap, and give the mosquitoes something to feed on.

Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Thaw freeze thaw

And so on. It’s winter. It’s spring (sort of!) No, it’s winter again. Thaw-freeze-thaw! Or is it freeze-thaw-freeze?

As I write, it is more springlike, although the forecast is calling for snow by tonight and through Friday. We’ve gone from wearing our warmest coats to beat the -25C last week, to not needing a jacket at all today for +9C! March is about to roar in like a confused polar bear (I think that’s the saying in these climate change challenged times?) and we’ll aim to enjoy it either way.

Minus 25C on the wobbly bridge over the Bow – but where is everyone?!

Much of the warmth has come from repeated chinooks, and, for out this way, that’s not unusual at all, although the frequency is irritating if you like the snow… I took a snap of part of the chinook arch stretching across the sky to the west of the city yesterday. The wind was barreling in along the Bow valley, warming everything up. Slush city!

The birds definitely enjoy the warmer weather – the moment the temperature goes above freezing and the sun beams down, you can hear the little brown birds singing in the shrubbery, flitting from bush to bush and asking is that it for winter?

Geese, chilling out last week – honk if you’re feeling the cold

The resident geese on the river look a bit happier than they did last week, when they sat huddled and shivering in the arctic temperatures. Midweek, we saw a bald eagle fly over the bluff and turn to head west along the Bow. I’m guessing it nests somewhere on the edge of the city? We’ve seen it a few times this winter, and it’s quite the sight with the high rise blocks in the background!

As for beer choices, with the topsy-turvy temperatures, do we go with a darker winter oriented beer, or a more suitably springlike sipper? Decisions, decisions… I know – how about both?! Freeze-thaw-freeze, thaw-freeze-thaw, and so on!

Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Chinook blast

It’s certainly been chinook after chinook the past few weeks, so the Chinook Blast winter festival last week was aptly named!

We went over to the Eau Claire site last weekend to check out the lights and watch skaters on the pond. It wasn’t super cold, but cold enough to have the lagoon reopened for skating after days of above zero temperatures.

I’ve included a few photographs of the lights – nighttime photography isn’t a strong skill, but you can get a sense of the shapes and colours, and the different installations were fun to see!

Since the weekend, temperatures have plummeted and the snow has returned – it feels like winter once again. Maybe we’ll ski in a local park if the white stuff sticks around…

Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Two bridges and a slice of cake

Another year older, another year wider, and that’s how it goes! So said a friend the other day, wishing me a happy birthday. Wider? I think it was a typo?

Exiting mince pie season, in need of a longer walk, and with a couple of library books due, I decided to return them to my favourite library located over the river and down in Memorial Park. There are two closer libraries, but being a year wider was on my mind.

Approaching the Wobbly Bridge (you won’t find that name on the maps)

I like the walk down to Memorial Park as it includes two bridges over the Bow, one each end of Prince’s Island Park, making for a pleasant circular stroll.

The recent mists had finally lifted, and what a sight they left behind! The mist, snowy drizzle and frost (snizzle? smozzle? frizzle? I think these are meteorological words?) had combined to cover everything in a layer of brilliant white.

It seemed like the world had turned silver and blue, with ice extending from the river banks, some piled up in floes, and the lagoon perfectly frozen for skating.

I can see the attraction, but avoided temptation – I still have bruises from that time on Canmore pond…

What a splendid winter walk! I returned the books – no overdue notices – enjoyed a moment watching the skaters, and then bounced home over the wobbly bridge.

Sun’s dropping, and so is the temperature – time to head home!

Once home, being a year older and wiser, I did the sensible thing and warmed up with a cup of strong black coffee and the last slice of Basque cheesecake. Older and wider takes commitment.

Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

PS Barely more than a week into the new year, and, news wise, it’s dreadful, hard to ignore, and shouldn’t be ignored. I’m not going to comment any more than that on that – you’ve seen what’s happening, it’s quite clear – and I’ll stick with trying to keep this little corner a pleasant place to be. Stay safe, wherever you are.

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