Week 10 Spray Lake 2015

Week Ten – Spray Lakes, 2015

Some people think that riding the Great Divide, 2775 miles, by bicycle is an amazing feat…well, not so much for this young fellow who came through the campground this week.  He wanted more of a challenge so decided to “ride the divide” on a unicycle…can you imagine that!  He had a big pack on his back and off he went.  People like this make me wonder why I don’t do anything as adventurous!  We had a young couple from France through the campground this week as well and they were beginning an 18 month trip on bicycle right through to Chile in South America…amazing!

We had a nice visit with Tom’s sister Lori and her husband Jim.  They arrived on Tuesday and we went downtown and wandered around a bit, then Wednesday they came up to the campground and we spent the day waiting for Tom’s smoked ribs to be done…mmm…they were sure good.  Lori and I went for a nice drive down to Mount Engadine and we were lucky enough to see about a dozen sheep including five babies at one of the day use areas, then a moose cow at Buller Pond and a Mama with two calves at Mount Engadine.  That was very cool but we were too far away to get pictures of them.  That was the first wildlife they’d seen on their trip other than deer so I was happy we found some animals.

Oso loves to go for walks on the dam now, especially since he’s discovered that the ground squirrels have taken up residence in the pipes that go under the dam…not sure what the pipes are there for but the squirrels like them and Oso likes the squirrels!  He bites and chews at the pipe thinking he can tear it apart to get at the squirrels…he doesn’t have much luck with that...it’s entertaining though for all involved!

There are pikas on the dam too…they are odd little animals  that look like a cross between a mouse with big ears and a bunny with a little cottontail…they make a beeping sound when they are startled and are really quite cute.  Oso would love to catch one of them but they are far too fast for him…they scoot over the rocks as quick as can be!

Since we now have days off, we’ve done a little bit of exploring.  We had to drive to Cochrane for groceries one day and went “the back way” through the Stoney Nakota reservation.  There we came across this little old church outside of a town called Morley.  The church was built by a preacher in 1875 and was dedicated to him on his death some years later.  The plaque we read said that he was travelling some 40 miles from the church and lost his way in a January snowstorm and died.  All around the church wildflowers were growing and Saskatoon berries were growing on large healthy bushes.  It looks like a good crop this year as the bushes were loaded.  We noticed that the buffalo berries in the park are ripening up and that there are far more of them than in past years as well, so the bears will have lots to feast on later this summer.  We’ve had a couple little black bears in the campground the last couple days so maybe they’ve already found some berries ripe enough to eat.

Dandelions are in full seed it seems.  I’m not sure what kind of dandelion this is but it sure is a pretty one.

All of the wildflowers are so pretty right now…these bluebells were looking good after a light rain as well.

One night we went for a walk across the dam and on our way back saw a couple of young guys building something on the mud flats just below the dam…when we got close we saw it was a huge peace sign…I’ll leave you with that now… “Peace out at Spray Lake!”