BEARS & Other fun things

By Sunday morning we had finished all of our interviews on the Takla Lake First Nation Reserve and were ready to head back to the blissfully peaceful camp.

Our drive was relaxing, except for the yelling of “BEARS” from Michael (our guide). We stopped four times to watch Black Bears as they danced across the road and into the fields.

The first one sat and watched us watch him for a few minutes…..

….and then decided that we really weren’t that interesting, so he could head to his Sunday brunch……

The second one was a small female who peeked out at us from the bushes…..

Two others crossed in front of the truck but didn’t stop to let us visit with them.

And then we turned a corner and Michael yelled “GRIZZLIES!!!……

We spent the next 20 minutes watching this pair as they walked slowly down the road.

The lighter colored female seemed fairly oblivious to our presence as she kept to the road, but the male was agitated by our being close and he kept crossing back and forth by the female…

It was a totally surreal experience to watch these massive creatures in the wild!

We came upon a small Mule Deer and expected it to run away, but instead it pranced it’s way toward the truck…….

In addition to the wildlife, we also enjoyed some amazing scenery. Seeing these mountains in the background is always awe inspiring to me….

One of the things that we noticed was that the weather was constantly changing. It would start out cloudy….then get sunny….then rain a bit…. then fine back up again. But, when it started hailing I knew that I wasn’t in Georgia anymore……

But, when we arrived in camp 10 minutes later, it was sunny and warm again!!

Since we had been so busy at the Reserve, we decided to loll around camp for the afternoon. I started to lay down and take a nap, but instead decided to go outside and play with some watercolors that I had brought with me.

When I am doom-scrolling on Facebook Reels, I often watch videos about painting and I have learned that your paintings look much better if you tape off a border to start with. I had brought a small amount of painters tape with me and started there….

WOW….I feel so professional!!!

The other thing that I have learned is to start by covering the page with water using a large brush….

….and start adding colors to the water, allowing them to blend together….

I kept playing with this background, adding yellow and purple flowers….

….until I had a painting that I liked…..

Next, I decided to tackle the trees in the background. I knew that I needed different colors of green and had so much fun mixing until I got the color I wanted….

I struggled to get the Aspen trees to show up on top of the dark pines, but eventually added enough white to it. There are probably 15 layers of paint on those lighter trees!!

I was happy with the final result….

Having this little guy visit….

….was the perfect end to a varied and amazing day!!