August Long Weekend

We traveled to the Alberta foothills for the August long weekend.  The girls and I packed up the trailer and headed out to the Forestry Trunk Road.  We spent most of our time at the campsite at Ram Falls.  It was very relaxing.  We arrived after dark on Friday night and it was a bit of a challenge to find a site that our trailer would fit into, particularly in the dark.  Eventually we succeeded.  We were a little annoyed at the campsite operator as despite advertising themselves as large RV friendly, there were limited sites that our small 5th wheel could fit in to.  This was particularly frustrating given the fact that the two campsite loops with larger pull-through sites were closed.  Judging by the overgrown nature of these sites, they had likely remained closed all summer.  The next morning we slept in and eventually moved to a larger site that had more space for our trailer.  The girls enjoyed picking and eating the wild strawberries that were ripening in all the clearings.  There were a lot of wildflowers blooming all over the place, particularly twin flowers, avens, monkshood, and others.  Later in the afternoon we took a walk down to the gravel bar along the Ram River and collected rocks.  There are a lot of very old marine fossils to be found in this formation.  The next day, after sleeping in again, we took a hike along the rim of the Ram canyon.  Still a little bothered by a sprained knee and sprained ankle, courtesy of summer hockey, I didn't climb down the long staircase to the viewing platform above the Falls.  While the girls checked out the falls, I took some photographs up on top with my view camera.  Then we set out along the canyon trail.  It was a beautiful day and we enjoyed the walk and all the wildflowers.  Margarit, Annelise and Helena eventually headed back to the trailer while Hailey and I stayed behind to take a few more photographs with the 4x5.  We were so absorbed in our task that we did not immediately notice the deer that wandered up in the trees right behind us.  That night we sat around the camp fire enjoying the evening together.  The next morning, after breakfast we set off down the road and ended up stopping for the afternoon at Elk Creek.  But, before we could do that, Margarit wanted to show me a rock that she had found down near the gravel bar.  She insisted that it was a perfectly heart-shaped rock that she simply had to have for her flower bed.  It turned out to be a rather large rock that was challenge to dig out of the side of the road.  Eventually we had it extracted and loaded in the back of the truck and were able to continue on to Elk Creek.  This is another of our favorite spots that we have camped at numerous times in the past.  We hiked down along the creek and the girls enjoyed splashing in the cold waters of the creek and collecting yet more rocks.  Eventually we had to pack up and make our way home.