Road Trip - April 2017, Part 10
It took a few days getting back from the outskirts of Portland home to Winnipeg, with long days of driving. However, I did take a few detours. The first was the Hwy 30 Historic Route just east of Portland, a beautiful drive where I stumbled across a great hike overlooking the Columbia River Gorge, at Mayer State Park:
Oregon at the end of April.
Hiker on the ridge.
The parking lot, from halfway up.
I drove pretty steadily after that, up through Spokane, to stay the night at Coeur d'Alene. Then up through Sandpoint, Bonner's Ferry (where I picked up a most interesting hitchhiker), to lunch in Kalispell. It seemed Hwy 2 was open, so I took a detour into Glacier Park and spent some time at Lake MacDonald while the weather couldn't decide whether to snow or not:
A grebe hunts for fish.
Once again, too little time spent at a beautiful place, but I was already behind schedule, so I drove late until I got to Havre. The next day it was back to Canada, returning on the same road I'd come down, at Port Climax. I had always wanted to visit Grasslands National Park, which is just down the road, and this was the perfect chance. They had just opened up the park for overnight stays in their yurt-like structures (called OTENTiks), so I booked one and spent the rest of the day and the morning of the next roaming and hiking.
The sky is ginormous.
Startling a herd of mule deer at 70 Mile Butte.
A meadowlark rockets through the air on folded wings.
If a bison ignores you, it's a good thing.
That night was cold, and dawn greeted us with frost.
Jack Frost paints.
I spent the rest of the morning getting some lucky wildlife shots, trying to stay up-sun and down-wind:
Watch your step! They might not be as big as in Red Rock Canyon, but their needles are still sharp.
The final gift on this trip was a herd of pronghorns, well outside the park. I managed to catch one in stride:
It's a full day drive from Grassland's park to Winnipeg. In all it was a fantastic trip, well overdue. I also rekindled my love of photography. As you can see from most of these pictures, I have a lot to learn about composition. But learning and experimenting is the fun part. Hopefully I'll have more interesting and artful photographs in the years to come.
