We rarely need an excuse to go to the zoo, so with the sun beating down today and temperatures rising well into double digits we spent a wonderful day with the family exploring Calgary zoo. We've been many times now but still enjoy every visit. The gallery below is just a small collection of shots from another fantastic day chasing Ethan in the spring sunshine.
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A few captioned shots taken with the phone on the way to make a certain little boys dreams come true. On his last visit Ethan watched every Calgary Flames game in the Stanley Cup playoffs on TV and absolutely loved it. As soon as he knew he was returning to Canada he asked if we could go watch the Flames, luckily for him the Chicago Blackhawks were in town and we were able to take him thanks to granny securing some corporate tickets for the evening. He was so excited throughout the whole game that even jet lag couldn't stop him, he absolutely loved it and we loved seeing him so happy. He fell asleep the moment we got in the truck to head home.
It's so good to have Mark, Hayley and Ethan here for two weeks now, we spent the day today enjoying Elbow Falls in winter, spring and summer, all in the space of two hours. We still had a great time exploring the beaver holt and associated lakes before walking round to the falls.
Today the sun crosses the equator heading north (the Vernal Equinox) so it is officially the first day of spring in Canada. As if to make us fully aware of it we saw an american robin in the garden this morning. He tried to avoid being photographed by bailing over the fence into the meadow behind the house but a bit of manual focus on the 600mm sought him out in the long grass making a nice first day of spring photo to share.
It's nice to look out from the comfort of the living room at the massive storms filling the horizon, it's been a day of drifting snowstorms today, there's not enough snow to settle on the warming ground but it makes for a beautiful spectacle as the clouds move quickly by.
Outside Sarahs office building in town (The Bow) is an excellent sculpture by Barcelona based designer Jaume Plensa. The 12 metre tall steel mesh head and face is titled 'Wonderland' and has two entrances to allow people to walk through it. The style is very reminiscent of Anthony Gormley which is probably why I like it so much.
This shot below is my own take on the sculpture. After photographing it I eliminated the background and inserted a flat blue in its place then flipped the image making a second face and creating a perfect symmetry and just a little tension between the two. During a local hike yesterday I met a man who emigrated to Canada from Germany, during our half hour chat we both noted how much we missed the sea. He had lived close to the sea in Germany, and if you're from England you are always close to the sea. I can't bring an ocean to my 52 project (well not this week at least) but I can being a beach. The local craft store provided a bag of shells and a bit of sand allowing me to have a bit of the 'seaside' right here in Alberta, and a bit of something different for the project.
We enjoyed a huge sunset tonight spread across cloud laden skies. I went up to the bedroom to shoot so I could get a better angle and see the distant mountains. The huge aurora predicted for this evening will be blocked out by the clouds so I guess this is our consolation prize.
Yesterday we spent the afternoon in the winter wonderland that is Upper Kananaskis Lake. There had been a good dollop of fresh snow up there in the last couple of days and we found ourselves wanting to see a bit of winter as there's been so little of it this year. We had a fantastic day and spent 5 hours circumnavigating the lake and taking it all in. You can see a full write up and all of the images by clicking here, there's also a small gallery below (no captions) to give a flavour of the day.
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AuthorWe arrived in Calgary, Canada on 29th December 2011 to continue our journey. This blog is intended to keep our family and friends informed whilst we explore Canada.You can use the RSS feed below to stay updated. Categories
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The Shaman, West Texas
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