Red Deer day 1-2, Encounters with wild creatures, human and otherwise.

"You will be reunited with old friends."  ~ Fortune Cookie

The morning drive was long and uneventful but still beautiful despite the smoke, and at length we reached Red Deer.  Funny thing, turns out its illegal to sleep in your car in Red Deer, even in a  campground.  Fortunately +Kathleen Milks had already faced this problem and had purchased a dummy tent which Mischief and I were now able to move into for the weekend.  Win!  The campground was nice and right on the edge of town, however...

            This particular campground was infested by

                                                        Attack Squirrels!

I was unable to capture evidence of their prolonged attack on our camp as they were quick, sly little shits, but I did get one shot of this little monster who spent a long morning laying siege to us with hurled pine cones from the tops of the trees.  He had taken a break to come down and scream obscenities at us before resuming his attack.

     My first full day in Red Deer, Mischief, Kathleen and I piled into +Paul Howard s car and headed out to Sylvan Lake for a day of hijinks and tomfoolery.

Kathleen had found some sticks and had Mischief's full attention.

And then promptly transformed into a mer-kangaroo, executing crazy bounding leaps through the water chasing said sticks.  Really wish I had gotten video of that but oh well...

At one point someone had been walking too long (about 10 minutes?) and needed to sit down for a break so Kathleen lent me one of her telephoto lenses and I practiced on some seagulls standing sentinel near by.

So of course Kathleen had to attempt to photobomb the seagull.

It didn't work very well.

Seagulls are hard to sneak up on.

A very Canadian cow.

We spotted this crazy truck from the side with the whole face of the skull hinged up like a hatchback and couldn't figure out for the life of us what it was supposed to be...

Then we just happen to spot it while we were having dinner as it drove past.

Kathleen showing off the pictures of Paul getting molested by horses a few days before.

After dinner we all piled back in Paul's car (now including Paul's friend +Mike Wanini ) and headed off into the countryside in search of wild horses.  Mike was our guide and confidently directed us deeper and deeper into the country where he knew the herd of wild horses could be found.

Of course we had to stop and take some pictures of the sunset...

And the local wildlife...

Unfortunately I was the only Whovian there and so only I knew what we were really looking at.

But of course the highlight of the trip was the magical moment when we actually found the herd of elusive wild Canadian horses.  Here are some of the amazing, once in a lifetime shots from that magical encounter.

The horses were surprisingly curious of us and virtually unafraid.  I can only assume that is because their contact with humans has been so limited that they have yet to perceive us as a threat.

We only tore ourselves away in the deepening twilight when the head mare of the herd had clearly had enough and let us know it was time to go and leave them in peace.

It was a truly awe inspiring experience I will not soon forget.