Blackstone

On Wednesday Hailey went on line and did her school lessons from the cottage.  She finished up shortly before 2:00 in the afternoon.  Right after that we set out for a drive.  The weather was much better than it had been the day before.  It was mostly cloudy, but the sun broke out from time to time.  The temperature got up to around +15C, and the winds were much lighter.

We took a drive north on the Forestry Trunk Road.  About 32km north of Highway 11, the Trunk Road crosses the Blackstone River.  This is a favorite spot of ours and we used to camp here with our trailer quite regularly.  Now that we have our cottage nearby, this has become a favorite spot for a day trip.  There are some extensive gravel bars, littered with driftwood.  Mixed in with all the river rock are some fossils.  These are invertebrate fossils that are marine in origin.  I'm not sure exactly what they are, some sort of preserved worm burrows...?  Or maybe coral of some kind.  In any event they are quite fascinating, and fairly common.  On very rare occasions we have also found shell imprints.

Hailey and I wandered around for a couple of hours.  We brought Quinn along for some exercise, but had to keep her on a leash so that she didn't wander out onto the rotten ice at the edge of the river.  Hailey collected some rocks, and I took a bunch of photographs with my 4x5 view camera.  It was a great afternoon.  By early evening we headed back to the cottage.  The BBQ came out of the garage and I got a meal of steak, baked potatoes and salad on the go.