Anyhow, I am going to try to be a little more on the ball.
We went to Calgary the other day, for hubby's semiannual visit with his doctor. Since we have to stay at least one night, we try and find something interesting to do while we're there. Shopping is not it. I'd sooner shoot myself in the foot than have to spend time in a mall. By the time all the doctor stuff is done it's around dinner time, so we find somewhere fun to eat and then go to a show. It's like date-night for seniors. Early dinner....early show.....early to bed.
This time we found a sweet little Filipino place in a strip mall in an industrial area. Steven is not a hugely adventurous eater, plus he has a lot of dietary restrictions, but once he realized that almost every culture has some type of noodle or pasta or dumpling , he has become less fearful of "foreign foods".
I had tiger prawns and taro root deepfried in a rice wrapper with an orange-citrus sort of dipping sauce, and he had a seafood noodle type of pho. Of course I had desert, which was a layered fruit concoction. The bottom was like a frozen granular coconut ice, surrounded with tiny red beans (the sweet kind), strips of a white mango, a green jellied something, and a diced selection of something else. It was all topped with a purple and white ice-cream. I tried a bite of each item (all tasty!) and the waitress must have seen me because she rushed over and explained that "You can-must mix all together and eat" So I did and it was glorious!
Then we went to the show (Oceans 8 for those who are curious, I thought it was enjoyable, I love a good heist movie)
Next morning we had no doctor visits, so we headed out and decided to stop somewhere in the park for a hike. The park, for my non-local friends, is Banff and Kootenay National Parks, we have to drive through both on our way to Calgary.
I've always been curious as to the sign for The Paint Pots, so we decided to make that our stop. The weather was warm, but rain was called for and the sky was gray so we didn't want to go too far, and this sounded perfect as it was only 1.5 km each way.
From the website:
"The Ktunaxa (formerly Kootenay), as well as the Stoney and Blackfoot tribes, collected ochre here for important ceremonies and for trade. The yellow ochre was cleaned, kneaded with water into walnut sized balls, then flattened into cakes and baked. The red powder was mixed with fish oil or animal grease to paint their bodies, tipis, clothing or pictures on the rocks. These paintings depicted many objects from day to day life as well as more abstract drawings that may have originated in dreams or represented supernatural beings. The Paint Pots site is still considered a sacred site by First Nations today. Please treat it with respect - stay on the trail and do not remove the ochre."
The walk up was beautiful. You leave the parking lot and walk thru a wooded path towards the river and then cross over.
After the bridge you continue thru the forest on a well marked path, but then as you get closer to the pots, the path becomes muddy and narrow and a small, but rapid stream runs along beside you.
There are three "pots". Two larger ones look swampy, not in a bad way, they're quite pretty and it doesn't seem odd that they are always there....like any swamp. But the smaller one looks like a giant mud puddle and it's pretty astounding that it's been there for hundreds of years. Why it doesn't dry up is amazing. There must be a tiny spring underneath.
I took a few photos, stopped and chatted with a couple from Japan who were entranced by
a grouse who was standing in the path, looking dense, as grouse do. They were SO excited
to see it, as they knew all about Grouse Mountain, and their hotel was called The Grouse Mountain Inn.
We saw a fair amount of wildlife this trip. Lots of deer of course, and a flock of turkey vultures, about a dozen of them all in a row, sitting on fence posts. That was kind of creepy. Then a small mountain sheep, a baby, running down the middle of the highway, hopefully he found his mama and didn't get run over. A red fox, standing on the side of the road, waiting to cross, and this fellow:
Then we came back, crossed back over the river, stopping first to wash all the ochre off of our shoes. The spring run-off must be done as the water was like glass. This is about 18 inches deep, but so, so clean, it looks like it's only an inch. The point being, I put my muddy shoe in to rinse the bottom and instantly got soaked up to my ankle. Good thing we were on our way home.
Anyhow, that was that. Made the best out of a necessary trip and had some fun. We do live in a
pretty awesome part of the country.
