The road to SOAR I

An uneventful Air Canada flight ended in Calgary, Alberta, where we spent three days with family. I renewed my love affair with North American food, we wandered through malls bemused by the mass, volume and variety of STUFF available. On Sunday morning we headed south in convoy with more family to visit yet more family in Montana. Southern Alberta is as beautiful as I'd remembered, so beautiful it hurts.

Near Calgary the sage green of poplar leaves frosted on the trees blended with copper, bronze and burgundy from those that had changed, all against a myriad of soil browns and a dull grey sky.


As we drove south the trees retreat down the slopes of the valleys to line the riverbanks, while the dull gold grasses brighten and spread across the land. The hills grow lower until eventually "you can stand on a gopher hill and see clear to China" (as we used to say). The prairie. Dry grass and grain stubbles in every shade of gold you can imagine, shimmering under the clearing blue sky. And, shadow blue and white, the Rockies rise behind the foothills to the west. But by that time it was my turn to drive :-)


We changed over at Helena and continued south across the high, dry land between two mountain ranges. Sagebrush and sparse grasses on the hills, dull green and straw gold, shading into blue mountains in the distance.

Can you tell that I'm thinking about Abby's drum carding workshop?


-- posted on the move