I am visiting Red Deer for the first time. I may have travelled through here or by here but have never spent any time that I remember her. It is quite a beautiful city. Karyn and I have taken good long walks each evening on the many paths that follow the river.
It has been a while since I have entered anything here so I will fill you in a bit with notes I made as the days went by.
Friday night I arrived at my campsite. On the road, I was rather unsure that I would be camping. We drove through heavy rain most of the way from Lloydminster but as we approached Edmonton, it cleared a bit and the forecast said only a few more millimetres of rain were expected overnight. I decided to chance it and so we went in to Elk Island National Park and selected one of the two remaining campsites and set up the tent before I went down to Devon to drop Sara off at her friend’s home.
I am glad I decided to camp. I find it very relaxing being out in nature. There is a liquor ban for the weekend but that didn’t stop one group down the road from me from making a lot of noise last night. Finally they quieted down or else my cold medication knocked me out and I slept till the sun woke me this morning. There was no rain at all here during the night.
Saturday morning I was reading in Phyllis Tickle’s book of prayers for summertime. The call to prayer was from Psalm 66
Be joyful in God, all you lands;
Sing the glory of his name;
Sing the glory of his praise.
Say to God, “How awesome are your deeds!
All the earth bows down before you,
Sings to you, sings out your Name.”
As I read, I listened to the leaves in the trees around my campsite sing. My campfire crackled. A squirrel began to chatter. A bit farther away the birds were waking for the day with song. And I began my day thanking him for his goodness to me – for rest, for this place where the trees surround me and that it did not rain in the night.
That would have been my blog entry if I had been anywhere that I could connect to the internet on Saturday. But I was far from anyplace like that.
Sunday afternoon I arrived at a friend’s house in Red Deer. They graciously are letting me hook up to the internet and so I have no real excuse for not making an entry yesterday, except that I had a long nap in the morning – from about 9 till 11 and then was busy doing other things – like visiting.
Now today, I will move on to visit my sisters in Calgary and area. My cold is causing me less trouble as the days pass. My poor nose is pretty red but I can breathe through it again.
I did bring my camera with me on this trip. While in the park up at Elk Island, the buffalo were roaming the park near the road. I got some amazing pictures up close – from inside my car for sure but they were close. At one point a big bull bison was making some fairly threatening noises as he shuffled closer. I decided to move the car out of his way. I don’t think a vehicle would fare very well in an encounter. These pictures will have to wait till I get home but I will post a set on Flickr.
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