A little of This and a little of That

Friday we took a run down the valley to Fairmont Hot Springs for lunch. We ate at Dappers Landing and the meal was pretty forgettable, or at least mine was, Brenda had a “Chicken Club” and it was OK. After lunch there we headed down to the Hoodoo’s a little farther down the road just across the Columbia River.

We took a nice little walk along the river below these strange formations and gave Meg a little run away from the campground. She is not used to being tied up all day and having to walk on a leash, but is a quick learner. There were some flowers along the trail here, below a wild rose

and some kind of moth resting on the always plentiful dandelion.

After our short excursion we headed back to the campground for another afternoon of catching up on our reading and napping.

Saturday we headed back down to Invermere to visit the Saturday morning Farmer’s Market. not many farmers in evidence here, but it is early in the season yet so we came away with a quilt and a bag of ripe cherries. Windermere Lake was starting to get busy by the time we left and if the weather stays warm in another week it will be hopping here in the Windermere valley.

We did take in the evening show at the campgrounds theatre and it was a portrayal of the development of the Radium Hot Springs here with a lot of crowd participation.

Sunday our last full day in the valley we decided to go the other direction up towards Golden and then off west towards the Bugaboo Mountains. There is a maze of roads and developed trails heading into the hills here and we just followed our noses and came to these waterfalls along the way. The one below alongside the road on Dunbar Creek.

And after a short walk into the forest at the same site we came upon a larger falls.

That is apparently a local favourite for the backdrop in wedding photo’s

After wandering around in the back woods for a while and letting Meg hunt a few ground squirrels

we dropped back into the Columbia Valley and crossed the wetlands that fill that valley from side to side.

This area, Columbia National Wildlife Area, is apparently a pretty significant wetlands that are major stopping over places for birds along the Pacific Flyway and seemed to be teeming with bird and other types of wildlife. We didn’t see a lot of wildlife but it sure is pretty.