Monday, June 21, 2010

Spring Trip 2010 - Day 12 part 2 - Dinosaur Provincial Park

Now, ready to hunker down in anticipation of what ever was to come....we headed to the far end of the campground....
Choosing this site which was sort of tucked in around a corner, had lots of brush to break the wind but no large trees to fall on us, angled the truck and camper as best we could....and waited..

Our new site....

Tossed this in to show that occasionally the two girls do actually almost touch......forgive the dumb look on Shantz' face! It is a husky thing.....

Settled in now, but with the day wearing on, and it being a very pleasant 18 degrees outside with wind, but nothing major....we decided to take the trail I mentioned earlier that runs down the Coulee formed by Sandhill Creek. I should mention that about the same time we set out, a young couple were setting up camp in the tenting area. We mentioned the weather forecast and they were well aware of the approaching storm but had decided to camp anyway. Seeing they seemed to know what they were doing, we continued on for our walk.

just a picture of the general terrain in this area.....

and here is Sandhill Creek....we're facing pretty much south west in these pictures.....


We noticed, up on this cliff face.....

a number of Rock Pigeons...they seemed to be going into one particular area....we assume they were nesting there, or at least planning to....

This Canada Goose had a nest in the middle of an open field....certainly had a clear view all round of any predators that might show up.

In another area we noticed lots of these......

Cliff Swallow nests. There were no Cliff Swallows around, so expect they hadn't yet returned for this years nesting season....

the trail continued on but we decided we had probably gone far enough for the day, having not started out until close to 5 pm.....

stopped to take a picture of another area of cactus (Shantz was on a short leash because of all these cactus)

and started the walk back toward the campground which is beyond those last hills.....

as we got closer we noticed it was looking a little 'black' in that direction (by the way that open field is where the goose was on her nest)

another look at the lengthening shadows and the sky.....

back in the campground, looking towards the west, it looked even 'blacker'....

the approaching weather viewed from the spot we were first camped at.....

and a final look....by 8 pm it had started to rain and the wind, which had seemed to die down a bit, was picking up steam....

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