Saturday June 29

I started my day with coffee from my new stovetop espresso pot – a gift from the NPES Research Ethics Board on my retirement. Where has this been all my life! It makes great coffee! Thanks folks – you’ve started a new obsession!

Happy Birthday to John today – I’ll contact him when I leave to go on my hike. The weather still looks stormy after last night’s thunder and lightning so I think I’ll stay off the water.

Today’s adventure was exploring the trails at the end of the lake. The circle around the marsh and then go up into the hills. While I should have been able to see bison – I didn’t. After what we did to them (killing off the majority in the course of 20 years) I don’t blame them for being a bit shy. But the walk was lovely. It was very hot and quite humid, but once I worked up a sweat I felt fine. My knee was sore, but it’s hard to tell whether I should rest it or exercise it. So I chose the latter, and in fact it did quite well on the 4km hike.

I’ll post as many pictures as I have the patience to upload (it takes a while). The stars today were the wild flowers. So many different kinds – some are familiar, many are different. I’ll name what I can then hope that my readers can help me out with the others.

Trail through one of the valleys. Cool and wet here whereas the hills are dry and hot.

Are these Saskatoon berries?

Another kind of cactus! I thought there was only one kind which grew this far north.

One of many protruding rocks with it's cloak of colourful lichen.

This is some kind of poop. Not dog poop - the contents are dry and 'grassy'. If it's deer poop, it's not a white tailed deer - could be the mule deer they have here?

Scotch thistle.

Blue bird.

The afternoon saw the humidity disappear. It was 36C in the camper but only 34% humidity, so in fact was quite comfortable. This evening I’m thinking about a warmer shirt. It will be a good night for sleeping.

The campground seems to have a bumper crop of little boys of various ages, and I’ve really enjoyed watching them go about their business. They are so completely self-absorbed and often serious about what they are doing. I saw three 10 year old’s walk by – two with metal detectors and one with a couple of spades. Not sure that will end well. They’ve propelled themselves along the road on every conceivable form of wheel whilst having serious conversations about the relative merits of this one or that.

The evening saw me sitting at the picnic table doing some mending. So peaceful, even with all of these people – the campground is full.