Discover. Experience. Capture.: Well I should be in Red Deer by..Ooh Whats That?!

"All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware." ~Martin Buber

Today was supposed to be a travel day. And I did travel, I swear! Just not as far along my intended path as I had planned. I set out with the intention of reaching Red Deer, AB before I stopped for the night. It was gonna be a long stretch and a late night but that was ok since there wasn't anything I wanted to stop for along the way...or so I thought :)

We slept in as long as possible to try to kick this bug that had been bugging me (heh) and be ready for the long day ahead, and so we didn't get moving until about 11 am. The road east was beautiful but super smokey. I was driving towards and through mountains I could not see and I'm sure I missed out on some stunning views. I don't even begin to understand why I thought I'd be too far north for the smoke to be here...anyway... Later in the afternoon we hit our first distraction:

Dreamcycle Motorcycle Museum -
"A showcase of the art and beauty of classic and collectible motorcycles."

My camera and the volume of shots I was taking made the owner nervous so I assured him I was not taking pictures for commercial use and resolved to only post some of the more abstract shots here. I made an exception with the last 4 since the story was so fascinating! I will process and post more shots later on g+ but seriously go check this place out if you're in the area and are into motorcycles even a little bit. So worth it! Their website is here: http://www.dreamcycle.ca/

As I was finishing my walk around their little but extensive gift shop and trying to resist blowing my entire trip budget on a gorgeous model Triumph I totally didn't need but reeeealy wanted, the owner asked me what was to become the most common question of my trip. 'Where are you from?' So I told him about my trip and which direction I was going and he immediately pulled out a map and said 'You need to go check out Margaret Falls!', and thus was our second distraction of the day decided.

Not far down the road we turned off of the main highway onto a winding back country road along Shuswap Lake and through a little community called Sunnybrae. If I was the kind of person who could be happy living out in the country away from any major cities I would live in a place like Sunnybrae. Another spot that is worth the little bit of extra time just to drive through. Margaret falls was about 15 min or so down the way and it was getting near sunset but I was assured the falls was only a 10 min easy hike up the path so we set off. Mischief was a bit too excited to be out of the car to pose for me so I didn't get any pics of her worth saving, but the steep ravine we were in was a lot more interesting than I was expecting and we enjoyed the whole walk as much as the falls.

On the way back down the path I happened upon a rare phenomenon. Many people may not know that trees have genders as it is very uncommon to find evidence of such, but amazingly I found what was easily distinguishable as a male tree:

I wondered what may have caused him to be in such a state that I was able to so clearly see his masculinity, but I didn't have to wonder long. Just past him down the path was obviously the object of his affection:

We promptly left to give the amorous trees some privacy, and emerged from the ravine just in time to get some stunning shots of the smoke reddened sun over the lake.