Day 28 - Monday, October 14

As you saw from the Thanksgiving Day card, this morning's sunrise was worth getting up for. I believe if you can see it and enjoy it, it's worth it (even with a less than ideal foreground). One of many things to be thankful for.

Elk Island National Park is about 70 kilometres east of Edmonton so very approachable for the day. They pride themselves on their wildlife, particularly elk, moose and bison. The welcome sign flaunts similar promises. We have learned to not get too excited because we're somewhat notorious for not seeing anything. Seemed like today would be no different.

The Moss Lake Hiking Trail looked promising but... It was a nice trail with lots of ups and downs. Why does there always seem to be more ups than downs? There were certainly signs that wildlife was present on an ongoing basis. The animal paths down to the water were numerous in a short stretch of shoreline.

And there was lots of,,.well, you know what that is.

It was a very pleasant hike. As you can see, most of the leaves are down now. Time for nature's clean up.

The fastest way to level out any hiking trail is to take a photograph of it. Looking at the pic you'll wonder what all the fuss was about. This one dropped into a gully for half the photo at an angle of roughly 45 degrees then rose just as steeply to the top of the hill. Looks awfully flat in the photo eh? In this case, it would take a thousand words to explain what the photo does not show.

It took until our drive out of the park to see any wildlife at all. He was pretty comfortable loafing in the grass on the side of the road. Reminded me of a great adventure close to 50 years ago with our friends Mike and Gayle in Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming. In those days I'm sure Gayle and I were crazy enough to approach the bison far too closely and probably should have been removed from the park for our antics - either by the rangers or the bison themselves!

Tomorrow is essentially our last day. I do not count the actual last day when we fly home.

😎