I don’t have a Fashion Friday post for you today. Hubby and I spent a few days this week camping, hiking, and kayaking in one of our favourite locations, Big Knife Provincial Park. Though less than an hour from home, we had no internet or cell phone service. It was a total and wonderful disconnect from technology and from the cares of the world.

People enjoy camping for many different reasons. For me, I love the solitude; the opportunity to get away from the busyness of day to day life and reconnect with nature. Sitting in camp reading a book, I heard nothing but the whisper of the breeze in the trees, the buzzing of insects, and the music of birdsong.  Occasionally the chatter of a squirrel or, in the evening, a distant chorus of coyotes, interrupted the quiet. From time to time, I enjoyed looking up from my book and watching a pair of small woodpeckers (yellow-bellied sapsuckers) industriously pecking away at a nearby tree. Working from morning til night, they’ll eventually kill the tree, but others will grow up to take its place. That’s the way of nature.

We spent part of each day hiking, exploring every trail in the park. I was thankful for the 60+ km that we walked last month, a good start toward accomplishing my goal of 350 km by the end of October. Our legs were more than ready to tackle the trails even in the extreme heat that our province has been experiencing recently.

In places, stands of wolf willow (more commonly referred to as silver willow here because of the silvery colour of its leaves) were in bloom giving off the strong musky-sweet scent that is such a an unmistakable characteristic of the prairie at this time of year.

Because we were in bear country, we carried bear spray and kept the bear bell dangling from our backpack jingling. Unfortunately, that meant that we were less likely to see other wildlife, but we did see one deer and we were almost back to camp on one of our hikes when a beaver slipped soundlessly across the path right in front of us! If we’d been any closer, we probably would have tripped over it! In both cases, the animals moved too quickly for me to get a photo.

We saved our shortest, but most strenuous hike for our final morning. Leaving the marked paths, we followed a narrow trail that we first found several years ago. Though you can’t see the upper part of the trail in this photo, it follows the edge of the tree line all the way to the top of the hill then continues for some distance along the top of a ridge. In the second photo, I’m looking back.

The trail led us to the hoodoos, a geological formation found throughout the Canadian badlands. Formed by erosion, a hoodoo is a pillar of soft sandstone with a capstone of harder, denser rock. This area is also accessible from one of the easier marked trails.

Not a fashion photo! 😄

From the bluff above the hoodoos we had an amazing view of the meandering river below. Looking at the photo, it’s easy to see why we can paddle for a long time and not go very far as the crow flies! Our first time out on the water this trip, which was also the first time we had the kayak out this year, we paddled for over two hours. By the last half hour, I could feel the burn of muscles not used enough over the long winter months and started making promises to myself about dusting off the hand weights in the basement and starting to use them again!

Fashion Friday could be a little hit and miss over the summer months as we hope to spend more time on similar excursions, but I’ll try to post something at least once a week, fashion or otherwise.