Sunday Drive down Chungo Road

On Thanksgiving Sunday, October 8th, Margarit and I decided NOT to do any work around the cottage.  Instead we set out on an afternoon drive.  Originally we intended to drive up the Forestry Trunk Road to the Blackstone River.  But, we made a last minute decision and headed west on the Chungo Road instead.  

It was a beautiful day with clear sunny skies, and the temperature peaked at about +24C.  Very warm for this late in the season...  Our first stop was along Lookout Creek.  It was beautiful here, and I set up the big camera for a shot.  We noticed a bunch of trout in the creek, but all the tributaries of the Blackstone River are mostly closed to fishing.

Later we continued on to the Blackstone River.  This is upstream quite a distance from the Trunk Road crossing of the Blackstone that we usually visit.  There is a small recreation area with rudimentary camping facilities here at this upper crossing.

Later we continued even further west and followed the road to a crossing on Chungo Creek.  There was another small camping area here, but no one was around.  We wandered around down by the creek for quite a while and I took a few more photographs with the big camera.  By this point we were around 30km west of the Trunk Road, and getting closer to the Bighorn Range.  The main ranges were not particularly visible from this area as the road followed all the valleys in between the foothills and front ranges.  We turned around at this point and slowly made our way back to Nordegg.  Along the way we saw both White Tailed and Mule Deer, as well as lots of moose and elk tracks.  We even saw a couple of Spruce Grouse on the side of the road.

When we got back to the cottage it was about 5:00 and I put a beef roast into the oven for dinner.  We enjoyed a really nice meal together.  By the time we finished up it was around 8:30, and still very warm.  We went out for an evening stroll and cursed all the neighbors that had so many of their house lights on.  Eventually we got a little further away from all the light pollution and admired the clear skies with all the stars and the milky way visible.  We saw a really bright meteor streak across the sky from south to north and I'm pretty sure I head it crackling as it burnt up in the sky.  That was a treat to see and reminded me of one that Frank and I saw years ago down in Drumheller.  That one lit up the sky like daylight for a few seconds, and was much closer to the ground than the one we saw on this day.  All the same, it was really impressive.