Wildflowers of Dinosaur Provincial Park

 

There were lots of Prairie wildflowers blooming in Dinosaur Provincial Park.

Yellow Buckwheat

Prairie Coneflower

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Tufted Fleabane

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Plains Prickly-Pear Cactus

Globemallow

Sunflower

Dinosaur Provincial Park

The next morning we headed east to our rendezvous with Cathy and Rick in Brooks, AB.

We missed the Calgary bypass so drove right through downtown Calgary, stopping at every traffic light. To top it off we got a speeding ticket but we didn't find out about that till we got the ticket in the mail back home.  The city was eerily quiet because it was Saturday of the Canada Day weekend.

Rick and Cathy got there before us and found a campsite at Emerson Bridge Regional Park.  It was hopping on the long weekend but we got a very spacious spot in the overflow section.

Happy sibling reunion

We hauled out our new ebikes and rode down to the Red Deer River and around the campground.

We had some great birding here as well. We were excited to see a brown thrasher, an eastern bird we haven't seen since we were in Arkansas in 2013.

Great bird, poor photo

The next morning we drove to Dinosaur Provincial Park.

It's flat, man

I've always wanted to see this park and it did not disappoint.  It's a world heritage site after all.

We hiked the Badlands Trail.

With spectacular views

And interesting formations,

Saw rabbits

And some desert birds, like the lark sparrow

And the rock wren.

They had several fossil displays, like this recreation of a bonebed excavation.

And an in-situ display of the nearly complete skeleton of a hadrosaur,

Also known as the duck-billed dinosaur

But where is the duck bill?

It's headless though so who knows if it's duck billed or not.

Off to Alberta

 Leo's sister Cathy and husband Rick drove their motorhome across Canada this summer and we drove out to Alberta to meet them before touring north to the Yukon.

Our first stop was at Steelhead Provincial Park in Savona on Kamloops Lake.

We try to camp here at least once each summer.

We then spent a day with our niece Monica in Salmon Arm where we attended her son Tristan's graduation.  Somehow I seem to have misplaced our photos of this event.

The following day we drove to Lake Louise where we'd made a reservation at the main campsite. It rained like crazy all the way there and through the night so we have no photos.

The following day the weather improved and we decided to stay an extra day.  We moved to the first come first serve campground at Protection Mountain.

Protection Mountain Campground

We hiked up a nearby trail to the lookout on Castle Mountain.

Castle Mountain

The destination is the site of a former fire lookout that was removed in the 1970s.  The lookout is at the base of the rocky part of the mountain.

As you may know I have real trouble climbing up hills these days.  So every few minutes I had to stop, rest and let my heart rate drop.

Meanwhile Leo took pictures of wildflowers

And chipmunks.

But we finally made it up to the lookout.

And enjoyed the views.

There were surprisingly few wildlife to be seen.  We took an evening drive but there were no bears or elk or even deer to be seen.

Surprisingly though, a fisher ran in front our truck. Neither of us had ever seen one  before.

Daytrip to Vermont

Lake Memphremagog borders on the State of Vermont so we took a day drive into the state.

We drove the winding road to Smugglers' Notch,  so named because the locals used it to smuggle goods from Canada after Thomas Jefferson banned trade with Great Britain in 1807.   Later it was used as an escape route for slaves and for smuggling liquor during prohibition.

We stopped for lunch at the summit and went for a short hike.

Next we drove the toll road up Mount Mansfield, the highest peak in Vermont.

From the parking lot we had to hike the last 10 minutes up the Long Trail, 

which travels the length of Vermont.

It was a rainy day but the clouds parted as we reached the summit and we got a great view as far as Lake Champlain in the distance.

So we've ticked another American state off our lifelist!

The next day we went kayaking on Lake Memphremagog then drove back into Montreal in preparation for our flight home.  We had dinner at a great Vietnamese/Laotian restaurant and had a last walk around the city.

Magog

 

The next morning we drove out to Rod's placein Magog on Lake Memphremagog.

We stopped at Brome Lake, home of the Louise Penny bookstore.

Ms Penny does not own the bookstore but they have a special section for her books and I believe the store features in her mysteries.

Best not sit for long or we might get caught up in a murder!

We also stopped at the Abbey de Saint-Benoit-du-Lac where we stocked up on cheese and checked out the abbey

and this small chapel:

The next day we checked out the Marais (marsh).

They built a chimney to house chimney swifts that are endangered because they can't find suitable chimneys anymore.

Lots yellow warblers in the Marais.

 

And frogs.

On to Montreal

 

Aside from the expensive mishap with the van, the next morning proceeded without incident.  We returned the van to the agency then took a taxi to the airport where we caught the UP Express to Union Station in downtown Toronto.  We got there in plenty of time to catch our Via Rail train to Montreal.

Union Station is beautiful!

We had a relaxing train ride

To Montreal

where we were picked up by our friends Janet and Rod and brought to her condo in Old Montreal.

We had an excellent meal at Restaurant Méchant Boeuf.

Last Day in Ontario

 In the morning we started to walk down the Marsh Trail on the west side of the park but it became clear that we were only going to be seeing and hearing the regulars:  robins, redwinged blackbirds , yellow warblers and yellowthroats. 

Also this house wren

That and we were walking behind a thick screen of vegetation blocking our view of the beach.  

We next tried the Spicebush trail, known for its maidenhair

and oyster ferns.

We headed back  through the woods

 but got caught in a rainstorm so spent the rest of the morning in the van.

In the afternoon we headed back to the dreaded 401, and drove through ever thicker traffic back to Brampton where we would drop off our van in the morning.  Of course we missed our exit again and wound up on the toll road before we found an exit.

We stayed overnight in a Walmart parking lot, but first we went to wash the van and managed to damage the air-conditioner on a too low entrance! 

Aside from that mishap we were very happy with our short experience with #vanlife.  The night at Walmart was uneventful and we were the only people in the lot.