Lavendula

A couple of pots of these beautiful Lavender flowers were outside the motel that friends and I stayed at overnight on 14 May 2014. I was so happy to see some bright colour after our long, harsh winter! I was going to crop this photo to a square, but then decided not to waste the orange and green bokeh on the left side. It's so heavily overcast today, colour can't be wasted.

My friends, Cathy and Terry, and I had left Calgary early morning on Wednesday (14 May 2014) and I think it was around 12:15 a.m. midnight (Thursday, 15 May 2014), that they dropped me off at home after two long, wonderful days in the Rocky Mountains, west of the city. Wednesday night was spent in a spotless motel, in a place that had so many Mountain Sheep roaming the streets, lol! Though we were hoping to see at least one Bear, I was, as always, happy as can be to see absolutely anything beautiful : ) This includes these colourful flowers just outside the motel office : )

Over the two days, we had 7 bear sightings, with three definitely different Black Bears (no Grizzlies), and possibly four. The rest of the sightings were of Bears we had already seen. My friends are good at telling individual bears, often by a certain scar (or lack of) and, of course, the actual location. Many of the bears we see, they have seen before. Basically, it's all about timing, as with any wildlife. A few minutes earlier or later and we would have missed seeing something special. We just happened to be lucky. All wildlife/nature photographers know it's all about timing : )