The beauty of low cloud

Today (12 October 2014) is Thanksgiving Day for Canadians, so I wanted to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving, no matter what part of the world you are living in or serving in. We have so much to be thankful for every day, in this country! A special thank you to those service people and their families, who make so many sacrifices for the rest of us, too often the ultimate sacrifice. I am very thankful for what you all do for the rest of us. Have a happy, safe time, everyone! Some people choose to celebrate on the Sunday (today) and others on the Monday (tomorrow).

On 15 May 2014, my friends, Cathy and Terry, and I, drove to this lookout point, where we saw the most wonderful sight! I was beyond thrilled to see the mountain peaks appearing and disappearing from sight. When we got up that morning, we could see the low cloud over the mountains from the motel we stayed at overnight. I was hoping so much that it would hang around long enough so that we could get a few beautiful views on our early morning drive. The sight that greeted us, as we pulled off the road at this particular lookout, was absolutely breathtaking! I've never seen anything like it before - though I should add that I don't get to the mountains very often. Each peak in turn would disappear and then reappear, constantly changing the scene before our eyes. For a photographer, this half hour or so could not have been more amazing - just ask my friends if I was happy or not, lol! When I think how easily we could have missed this experience, if we had arrived half an hour later.

We 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 happy as can be to see absolutely anything beautiful : ) This includes the wonderful low cloud in this image - possibly the highlight of the trip for me : ) On the other hand, everything was a highlight in my eyes!

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 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 : )