It wasn't to be a terribly productive day. In the morning we searched out the dump station site and found the HUGE compound full of free fire wood where campers were perfectly welcome to come and load up their pick up trucks...a far cry from B.C.'s little bundles at $5 a pop! and then went in search of the 'Native Prairie Trail'....we didn't plan to walk the entire 6 km, but thought we'd walk a ways and see what we could see. It took some searching but we finally found the trail....it ran alongside the road, but hidden by a screen of trees.
Ernie took the above picture....we were on the top of what appeared to be another plateau...there was a campground up here called 'Meadow's Campground' that was pretty much just a big flat field or Meadow....the wind was having it's way there! Campers were having to 'batten down the hatches!' or at least tie down the awnings.
This is the road we were following....I'm not sure where the Dark-Sky Campground was...the trail ran along the other side of those evergreen trees.... there really wasn't anything terribly exciting along the trail (hence no pictures) and when we came to a trail 'intersection' with no directions....we decided to turn around and go back....besides it was getting kind of warm....
I took this, just to show that although in many ways this park was really 'civilized'....the campsites themselves often left something to be desired....some, like the one we were in, was leveled....but many weren't and some were so small that you'd have trouble getting a small car and tent on them, let alone an RV. You can see that this section was very open....where as where we were it was forested...
Speaking of 'forest'.....this Squirrel was busy beside our campsite.....
The ground, in open areas, especially along the paved trail that I featured yesterday, was covered in these little 'Spring Beauty' wildflowers....one of the earliest flowers to bloom once the snow melts....
Here is a closer look at the 'Spring Beauty' flowers....
and there is another look at the forest as it was behind our campsite...which was, by the way, 'War Lodge'
We didn't see a lot of birds that day....there were very few along the trail we had walked in the morning....did see this Yellow bellied Sapsucker....
And there were, of course, American Robins
The rest of the day we spent just sitting around, reading, enjoying the sunshine and cooking a proper meal for supper. Shantz and Ernie are actually both looking at a tennis ball that is up in the air there - look by the camper's window. I'll now quote from my hand written journal 'It is now Friday evening. Ernie took the camper to the dump station and emptied the tanks and filled the water...partly due to the weather report ~ it is currently 12 degrees and sunny, but cloud is moving in and rain 'heavy along the Alberta border' is predicted ~ also temperatures as low as 1 degree ~ and that is on the flat, not up here....so it will be interesting to see what the next few days hold! This may be the reason why the campground is far from full - I'm not complaining, and they are streaming in, but apparently, last year, the entire park was full for the May long weekend by the Thursday afternoon!'
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