Tag Archives: travel

A Family of Elk Along Bow River

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!

Plenty of Rail Traffic Through Canmore

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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.

A Gondola to Nowhere

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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?

Helos at the End of the Day at Gateway

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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.

Along the Potomac

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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.

Strolling Through Canmore

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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!

DM A-10s Are Gradually Going Away

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For the longest time, there have been efforts by the USAF to drawn down the A-10 force. Various things have held them back from doing this but now there is a pretty concerted effort to retire them. Units are closing down, and it does seem that the aircraft might no longer have a role in the order of battle. There are many fans of the A-10 including me and some will never accept it can be replaced while others will think its time has come. They were produced from the late 70s to the early 80s, so they are definitely old, even if parts of them are a lot newer like the wings.

What we like or think doesn’t matter. They seem to be going away. Consequently, when we were at Davis-Monthan during the Arizona trip, I was pleased to get to shoot a few of the jets working around the pattern there. I know my Harrier experiences this year have shown how wrong you can be about when you will ever see things again, but I figure the number of encounters I shall have with these jets will be limited. Even so, they are continuing to make new developments as Mark found on a follow up visit when he saw a new store mounted on one of the evaluation jets. The A-10 was a favorite of mine in my teens, and it will be a shame when they are all gone.

A Town Full of Bridges

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A town on a river means there are likely to be lots of bridges. We’ve lived in London and Chicago, and both were not short of a bridge or two. Spokane seems to have done well in the bridge standings too. There are the large structures carrying the roads across the river and then smaller footbridges including suspension structures. As we walked along the river, we got to see a lot of different bridges and tried out a few of them too.

Is This Really the Road?

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Once we had crossed the border into Canada, we traveled for a while before arriving at Radium Springs. Here we took a turn into the Kootenay National Park which also provides the main road up towards Banff. As we made the turn and took the entrance into the park, I was convinced that something was wrong. We were driving right at a cliff. Sure, there appeared to be a crack in the cliff but that surely couldn’t be the road. However, that is exactly what it was. The road ran through this tiny gap and into the valley beyond. It was quite a stunning way to enter a park!

A Brief Visit to Spokane

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The beginning of our vacation involved a decent drive, and our route took us right by Spokane. We may have lived here for over seven years, but we haven’t been to Spokane in that time. In fact, we have been there before but only to the airport which we staged through for a trip we made back when we lived in Chicago. A hotel airport doesn’t really count as visiting a city. Since we had built some time into our schedule, we made a diversion into the center of the city to have a look around.

I had heard about the falls in the middle of the city and that there was some nice development along the river, so we headed for that area. Turned out to be a really nice afternoon to be walking around the river so we had got quite lucky. There are some other parts of our visit that will justify their own posts in due course so I shall just start with some shots of the falls and some of the buildings in the areas that we saw. I shall add more of the sights in due course.