The place we were staying in while in Canmore was on the edge of the town but had a great view across the town towards some of the mountains. The early light was from behind us and on to the mountains themselves. First thing one morning, I woke up and looked outside and saw some gorgeous red light illuminating the rock faces. What a wonderful sight with which to start your day.
During our trip to the UK, we met up with our friends Mark and Rosemary. They suggested we meet at Hinton Ampner in Hampshire. Being sensible people, we started out at the local pub for lunch before heading into the grounds of the estate. I didn’t know anything about Hinton Ampner but it was a delightful spot to explore. The grounds were really lovely to wander around. There were the more ornamental gardens near the house but there were paths around the estate which showed off just how lovely the rolling hills of Hampshire can be.
The house also has a café – of course it does – so we stopped off there to sample the goodies after strolling around the grounds. It was spring so the flowers were out in parts of the garden. There was also a local church in the estate since you wouldn’t want to have to go far if you are the local landowner!! What a lovely spot to spend some time and always great to catch up with good friends.
Earlier in the year, we made an afternoon visit to Wisley – the headquarters of the Royal Horticultural Society. I have posted about it previously but, this post is about some of the really cool looking plants that they have. That is what you would expect for a horticultural society, of course. Some of them are really fascinating looking plants so here are some shots.
Last year, when we made our trip to Kelowna, we stopped en route for lunch at a town called Hope. It is a small town and surrounded by mountains which makes for quite a distinctive view. There is a large park in the center of the town and the place we had lunch faced this park. The town was used for some filming for the Rambo First Blood movie and, when I happened to see a clip of this recently, I recognized the location immediately. Apparently, the town has some statues of the actors, but we didn’t see those while we were there.
While walking down by the Bow River, we saw a family of elk off in the distance. They were crossing the river downstream. We continued on our walk and, when we finished the loop trail, we were back at the same spot and saw plenty of people on the bridge staring in the same direction. I hurried up to see what was afoot and the elk had moved up the river to close where we were. Oh, how I wish I had a longer lens!
Amazingly, the people along the river seemed to have no interest in the warnings you always get about wildlife. They were getting way closer than seemed wise. The bull elk was a chunky looking fella and, with some of his herd there, I imagine his temper might be tested. Fortunately, nothing went wrong. Interestingly, he had a tree branch stuck in his antlers when we first saw him. He did manage to shake that out after a while. It made him look lopsided!
The location we were staying at in Canmore was very close to the railroad. This is the Canadian Pacific mainline across Canada after leaving Calgary. We had a lot of trains come through night and day, but it was really not terribly disturbing. Not long ago, Canadian Pacific merged with Kansas City Southern to create CPKC. The trains often had a mix of locos from both original companies. I imagine it will be a long time before they are all painted in new colors. Quite a scenic view with the trains in the foreground and the mountains in the background. We did have other operator equipment occasionally showing up in the trains but not too often. I knew someone that would be fascinated by the length of the trains, so I videoed one as it passed. It makes for a long video so be prepared if you watch the link below.
There is an interesting tourist attraction in Spokane that I hadn’t been expecting. A gondola ride starts up in the park area, drops down the hillside near the falls and crosses the river where it does a U turn and heads back the way it came. There are groups of the pods together on the wire and they slow everything down to board them. Consequently, you will come to a halt periodically during your ride while people embark and disembark.
The ride is never terribly high off the ground, so it comes right over you if you are walking around the hillside near the falls. A slightly surprising thing to see when you aren’t expecting it. I wonder whether the view of the falls from the gondola is impressive. This is the sort of thing that I would normally be expected to try. However, we only had a limited amount of time there, so I skipped it. Maybe I’ll find out some time in the future?
During the visit Mark and I made to Mesa Gateway Airport, we got a couple of rotary visitors to the field as the day was winding down. The first to show up was a Bell 412. The Huey is a very different beast when it is equipped with the modern rotor and this one also sported a nice paint scheme. It looked pretty slick. A bunch of guys were dropped off and then the 412 was back on its way. No idea what they were doing and probably shouldn’t know either.
A short while later, it was an Astar that came in. Maybe not as impressive a livery (although it did look nice) but the evening light was getting better and better, so it did make for a nice image. Looking through the images, one of the passengers seems to be super excited. If I was running around in an Astar all the time, I guess I would be pretty pleased too. A nice way to wrap up a fun day.
I had a brief work trip to the Washington DC area. Our offices are in Alexandria VA and I was able to meet up with family for dinner on my first night there. I did get there a little earlier than our reservation and took a little time to stroll along the riverfront in Old Town. It has been a couple of years since I was last there and a lot longer since I lived close by. It is a lovely spot to hang out on a nice evening.
Our trip to the Canadian Rockies had us in the area around Banff. However, we had chosen to stay in the town of Canmore – a short distance away from Banff rather than in Banff itself. This proved to be a great decision. I’ll share some thoughts from Banff in another post, but it was a very busy and touristy place. Canmore was not immune to that, but it had a far more comfortable feel to it. We were staying within walking distance of everything in the town so could easily go exploring.
I include a few shots here of the town itself but there will be some more posts that include some specific elements of what we were doing while we were there from where we stayed to the wildlife we encountered. Definitely a nice spot to use as a base. A bit of a drive to get to some of the more famous parts but it worked well for us. Very accessible and plenty of good food options!
