This morning started foggy, changed to sunny, although a bit hazy and I went to town and bought a new camera… Woohoo!!! – But by the time the battery was charged, the weather had started to move in – gray overcast skies… not the best day to play but I did manage to have some fun.
Fun, fun, fun!
Halloween morn dawned with a rosy-orange sky. When I walked to the edge of the woods I could see the colors, the mountains and the gold of the larch in the foreground. I didn’t capture the colors quite as I remember – the sky was softer and the larch brighter – you will need to use your imagination a bit…
This last week – 10 days has been Fall Perfection – sunny days, with impossibly blue skies and the soft colors of the grass and trees as they change and die. Since I took this morning’s photos, the sky has clouded over and the temperature dropped a bit. The forecast is for a change to rainy and then wintry (next week) weather. It has always at least flurried on Halloween night when I’ve been in Montana… we’ll see what happens tonight, but this morning I caught a bit more of fall…
…in the rosy gold dawn.
Yesterday, 8:45ish…MT 35/82 – Somers cuttoff from Hwy 35:
Morning light.
Alrighty then!! I have heard from some readers, done a lot of googling and I believe that both the bird in On Eagle’s Wings and in yesterday’s not a ornithologist are actually immature bald eagles! – yes!!! – Eagles! Nothing against the Osprey who is a gorgeous raptor also, but there is a certain mystique about seeing eagles and the post title and theme: On Eagles Wings – really needed an eagle photo – and I had seen the bird that day! Bald eagles are fairly common here but not where I grew up in northwest Ohio – it always thrills me to see them….
To check for yourself, here is a great link:
From Heidi Rettig (her blog is Two Kitties ) Immature Bald Eagle . Heidi lives on Flathead Lake, within 20 or so miles of me. We just “met” via Pioneer Woman’s blog – and she is also from the midwest – Minnesota…or at least lived there – funny, small world sometimes.
Ok, back to birds….I found an article that talks about how often people mistake immature bald eagles for golden eagles. …AND the kicker is that my mother got out HER bird book and emailed me – immature bald eagle is her call!
My Mama says so – so…
from yesterday’s “not an ornithologist” (photo taken in Wayfarer’s Park 10/28/2008)
and
from July’s “On Eagle’s Wings” (photo taken June 30, 2008 Wayfarer’s Park)…
Young (immature) bald eagles.
After playing with firewood for a bit this morning, Karl and I jumped in the Jeep and took off for Glacier National Park. When I first moved to Montana, I did a lot of hiking in the park – and one memorable ski run at Logan Pass on the 4th of July. In the last several years I have not been in the park. There are beautiful things to see – even just from the roads. And I love the far west edge – Polebridge which is not IN the park, Kintla Lake and another remote lake north of Polebridge whose name escapes me at the moment. St. Mary’s and Many Glacier on the east side are also favorite areas as well as Waterton – the Canadian part of the park. But bottom line is, as much beauty is contained within the Parks, I am a lover of the beauty or interesting (to me) or unusual found in the “normal” or “by the side of the road” or “off the beaten track”. All of this to say that it was not typical to feel the urge to go IN to the park…but I always love walking a bit by Lake MacDonald and it was a gorgeous day so off we went.
The drive was full of the colors of fall, although muted compared to past weeks as the aspen and birch have lost their leaves leaving those tree trunks and branches bare and whiteish-gray where there had been gold. The larch are at their peak and in those places where the sun hit their tops, they glowed amongst their dark green neighbors.
We arrived at the park gate. Typically, the ranger person hands the driver a packet of park material, asks if directions to anything are needed, dispenses some park information and collects the fee. Today’s ranger person almost apologetically told me the road was only open 16 miles – I did know that, but 16 miles was plenty for what I wanted to do. She then asked if I had a pass and when I said no, asked if I knew that the day fee was $25.00. I gasped as I hadn’t checked. It isn’t that I don’t understand the need to maintain things but $25 was more than I wanted to pay for a Sunday walk so we went on past the park.
I headed toward Essex which is not too much further, has a train station/hotel/restaurant and places to walk, which in winter are cross country and snowshoe trails, but as we drove on, the road enters a canyon, which even in the early afternoon was dusky and I decided I just wanted to go home. I found a place to turn around and there was the view. The river, the mountain sides spotted with color and the snowcovered mountain peak that looked like a pyramid
…a beautiful spot – by the side of the road.
