(no subject)

[ornerie]

home again home again jiggity jig....

what a fabulous trip! road trips with jennybeast  are TehBomb, just sayin' :)

we left at the buttcrack o' dawn, hitting NO traffic and zipped our way east, then north. (how do you get to Avacal? go to spokane and take a left....)

springtime in the palouse, especially in the morning light is gorgeous. so many kinds of green. and we stopped for lunch at my favorite bbq place (extra bonus! I had thought it was closed, but apparently there's another one on the other side of town that Nigel, my GPS found for me. score!) drive drive drive through spectacular scenery.

we saw tons of cool birds and wildlife....ospreys, including a nest with babies!, eagles and hawks, crows and ravens, wild turkeys! (including a pull over to have a conversation with an amorous tom) and a blue bird!!! we also saw elk, and deer and bighorn sheep and a prarie dog!! and a buffalo (granted, one in a pasture suggests a domesticated one, but hey! its a buffalo!), a pack of feral dogs (not the right color for coyotes tho one was) tons of beaver dams (no beavers :( ) a perhaps porcupine (tho it may have been a porcupine shaped/colored/acting bush. hard to say) and mormons. ;)

we did not see a moose, which makes me very sad. we certainly looked hard enough in all the marshy boggy low lying willowy areas. we also did not see a bear, which is more than our friends who hit one can say!

gobsmacking mountains and snow and clear blue skies gave way to prairie. wow. Made it to site in just over 12 hrs.....tho the speeding ticket in Yahk was NOT appreciated :(. here's hoping the canadian traffic system doesnt talk to the american one so my insurance doesnt go up :( (stoopid KPH vs MPH! and sneaky signage where it goes up and down seemingly at random. grump! oh well. my first speeding ticket ever and it was a disgustingly cheerful CMP officer....)

the event was nice and fun, though I felt rather disjointed, having stayed in a hotel. I also got totally exhaused from fighting the always present and always brutal wind so ended up showing up at 7 or so for meetings, etc and then around dark tottling home to crash. but the folks I did manage to meet were lovely and it was nice to touch bases with perky canadian apprentice and her freshly laurelled hubby :). Got to see spedgirl and her hubby get their carps, tall dapper hubby of cute little red haired apprentice get his AwardFormerlyKnownAsOrdussEquuis, got to have dinner with horse folks and S/S, which is always a treat. apparently if I ever need to bribe him KeyLime pie is the ticket. good to know.

it was terrific to see folks I was excited about do so welli n the lists, too :). usually who wins doesnt really do much for me one way or the other, but I actually found myself rooting for some folks (which I try not to do). apparently I'm not as jaded as I thought ;)

the last day I ditched the event a bit early and drug a cohort of folks to HeadSmashedInBuffaloJump, which is an World Heritage Site and very very cool. a new first peoples culture!! I actually dont know much about the plains indians, especially pre-invasion and it was really neat to learn about how they did things pre-horse, etc.

Left at the buttcrack of dawn again (the light that time of day? amazing.) and managed to hit some fun touristy stops....Franks Slide (wow. just wow.), and a super old dead tree. (took some cool photos) Hey, I'm a sucker for historical markers :) more amazing scenery, watching the prairie turn to mountains, then watching the type of trees change as you move from one range to another.

14 hrs and we were home. yay! a lovely weekend all round.

again, it was lovely to see all my northern buddies, and nice to meet new friends :). an awesome road trip!!!!! tho I'm ready for that "car still moving" feeling to go away. bleh!

Comments

[corbaegirl.livejournal.com]

I'm going to have to get with you and find out all the cool things that are on that trip north. I'm going to Edmonton this summer and may have some time to go to a few other places, and HeadsmashedinBuffaloJump is on my list of places to see.

[ornerie.livejournal.com]

make sure you call it something different each time...Headsmashed in....buffalo face smash jump....head smooshed in....smashed in buffalo jump....

and have a buffalo burger int he cafe! they taste pretty good for being 3000 years old :)

[corbaegirl.livejournal.com]

There's a song a Portland group does about that place, written from the viewpoint of the human whose skull is among the pile of bones. It's not a bad song, but my children decided that the whole idea of getting close enough to be swept over the edge with the stampeding buffalo showed a major lack of intelligence and proceeded to spontaneously come up with new words to the song. Makes me crack up everytime I, a. hear the song, or b. think of the place.

[ornerie.livejournal.com]

local legend has it a small boy went to watch the buffalo jump and got buried in the falling critters...kinda sad when you think about it :(

still the place is VERY impressive, and the interpretive center is really neat too!

[corbaegirl.livejournal.com]

A young child makes more sense; the song has it that it was a young adult who wanted to prove how brave he was.

How far off the main route to Calgary is it?

[ornerie.livejournal.com]

its only a couple minutes off the main highway #2 or #3 (near where they intersect), about 2 hrs south of calgary or so?

it was an easy side trip from the crown site!

I wonder if there's not generations of pre-invasion blackfeet kids who were admonished "dont be like that kid, or you'll get a buffalo jump named after you!!)"

[corbaegirl.livejournal.com]

Grin....sounds like something my grandmother would have said.

I think we'll definitely have to allow time for that side trip. Thanks!

[ya-inga.livejournal.com]

It was lovely to see you even in passing honey - glad you had fun in Avacal : )

Isn't Frank Slide amazing???? I love the interpretive center! I'd love to see the piccys of the dead tree - we've driven past it a zillion times and never shot a picture.

BTW thank you for the chat Sunday - I love it when you and I agree : )

[ornerie.livejournal.com]

thanks indeed :). seems you and I agree more often than not, even when others are saying we dont, which amuses me no end ;)

[ya-inga.livejournal.com]

Me too : )

[rectangularcat]

next time, you drive through Banff and it's differently spectacular!

thanks so much for coming, it was great to see you. I feel so bad that our potluck contribution ended up too late! We'll make fondue at our next core event I promise!!

The cool dead tree is pretty amazing, I took a neat pic of it 5 years ago. I have to find it, it was pre-digital days.