Sunday, May 25, 2008

Prairie Days

Today is the last full day I'm here. Tomorrow we'll drive out to Medicine Hat so I can hop on a tiny plane to fly to Edmonton then on Tuesday I'll fly back home (ahhh I hope my flights are better than the barfy ones I had on the way down!!!)

We've spent most of our afternoons out at the regional park where mum is the caretaker. Yesterday we went for a walk around the country-side since there wasn't anyone around camping and it was too wet to mow lawns and stuff.
There's a robin's nest at the end of one of the sites near the road. Every time someone walks or drives by the robin flies away - silly bird, you'd think she'd pick a better spot for her nest... I got a great picture of her eggs though:



Most of the days we've driven out to the park or up to Swift Current we've seen antelope. They're hard to get a picture of since they're usually laying down in fields or running away (not to mention the fact that we're driving on a highway past them). On our last trip to Swift Current we stopped as a group of them ran across the road so I managed to get a good shot (compared to all the other ones I've tried to get).



Other than that, we saw a fox yesterday or the day before but I didn't get a good picture of it (once again with it running away and us driving fast). Mum keeps saying that there are moose in the park but I haven't seen any.

Other that, I've just been playing around with the new camera. As much as I love my ultra expensive Canon camera the one thing it doesn't do well (with my current lens situation) is close-up shots. I wish I could afford a macro lens (and a fish eye and.... haha). So yeah, I now have a really good second camera that will do close up shots, self portraits (whoa, ever try one of those with a DSLR? You almost break your wrist!) and it's small enough that I can just throw it in my purse (instead of lugging around a whole dedicated backpack). It's handy for getting those "up close and personal" shots like the bird egg pictures... I couldn't imagine trying to wrangle my other camera into there (I mean, I could but it's a bit of a hassle).


mmm, strawberries!


Glennie Puss-Puss cuddling my slipper (it's hard to resist moose hide and beaver when you're a cat!)


Tumbleweed! They do exist!

So yeah! We're going to head out to the park in a while to see if anyone is out there (I doubt it, who wants to camp in the rain?) and I'm going to try to get some pictures so I can post them when I get home (or tonight if I get bored and don't want to pack)

Inuvik
Temperature: +15C
Sunrise: n/a
Sunset: n/a
24hrs of daylight is here!!!

Shaunavon
Temperature: +10C (how sad that it's warmer in the Arctic!)
Sunrise: 5:10am
Sunset: 9:05pm

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hope your flights back are smooth-sailin'!

One night years ago, my sister got up close and personal with a moose, when the car she was riding in (front seat passenger) hit a moose on a winding Maine road. It went up onto the hood and partly through the windshield. Killed the moose (I think), totalled the car, injured everyone in the car to some extent (minor, thank goodness), scared the crap out of everyone. Glad you haven't had such an intimate encounter with any of the wildlife up there!

Megan said...

Thanks! I'm going to dig out my gravol tonight!

Yikes! Moose are dangerous beasts. A lot of people get injured/killed in Newfoundland because of them.
Well, we came sort of close to hitting an antelope the other day. We were driving along the highway and it came running up the ditch and onto the road (thankfully on the other side). My mum didn't see it which was weird because normally she spots wildlife from a mile away. Sure scared me!

I'm glad your sister wasn't too badly hurt!

Anonymous said...

I've tagged you with a meme (my first one). Hope you'll play along! Check out my site for the rules, etc.