Oh, Glorious Autumn!

“Autumn carries more gold in its pocket than all the other seasons.”

~ Jim Bishop

The Autumn Colour Palette

Autumns are short here in Calgary and in the nearby Rocky Mountains. If you want to enjoy it, you have to get out there and savour every day you can—lest a particularly hard frost, unexpected snow dump or a big wind takes it all away overnight. It’s happened before: autumn can quickly disappear here by mid-September. But this year, we’ve been extra fortunate. We’ve had a bonus month of autumn—October has been a gloriously beautiful month, with most days being warm and sunny, and graced with incredible azure blue skies. The weather has been so lovely that my potted geraniums are still blooming! It’s highly unusual to have them last this late into the season. We took full advantage of the spectacular weather this whole season and got out for long walks with our cameras in the mountains and in our city parks as often as we could. Here are some of the sights we enjoyed on our autumn walks this year.

Above: Wedge Pond, Kananaskis Country, Alberta.

Morning Light and the Bluebirds of Happiness

“When you arise in the morning,
think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive—
to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.”

~ Marcus Aurelius

We Only Wanted to Glimpse One Bluebird

One of the things my partner and I were most hoping to see on our recent foray into wine country in British Columbia’s Okanagan Valley, was a Western Bluebird. While we get to enjoy the gorgeous Mountain Bluebirds which live here in Alberta, the beautiful Western Bluebird does not call Alberta home. We had never seen one of these little beauties before and we really wanted to catch a glimpse of one this trip. So imagine our surprise and great delight to discover that an entire flock of Western Bluebirds was roosting in the large Ponderosa Pine trees just outside our lovely accommodations in the Okanagan!

The Grape Escape

 

 

“The sun, with all those planets revolving around it
and dependent on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes
as if it had nothing else in the universe to do.”

~ Galileo

The Perfect Autumn Getaway

Let me take you to the heart of western Canada’s wine country in Penticton, a town cozily nestled in the sunny Okanagan Valley in the southern interior of British Columbia, Canada. The drive from Calgary to Penticton is a scenic 8 hour drive, winding over two stunning mountain passes and passing through three contiguous National Parks in the Canadian Rocky Mountains (see my previous post). Once we are over the mountains, the road glides down into the valley and hugs the shores of scenic Lake Okanagan for 132 km (84 miles), making for lovely vistas all the way south to Penticton. For my partner and I, the road trip itself is one of the best parts of our getaways to the Okanagan Valley and we milk it to its fullest.
 
The Okanagan is a pretty valley stitched together with picturesque patchworks of fruit orchards, vegetable farms, vineyards and small wineries. A few days spent basking there is what we call a perfect getaway. It is pure balm for the soul.

Passenger With a Camera: The Journey is the Destination

“A good traveler has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving.”

Lao Tzu

The Landscape Through My Lens

Oh, how I love a good road trip, especially a drive through beautiful country. When it comes to road trips, my partner and I usually find ourselves driving eight hours east, across the prairies from Calgary to Saskatchewan, to visit my mother. But this time we are driving eight hours west, on a little autumn getaway to beautiful British Columbia. The landscape is whizzing by at 120 km/hr but I can’t help myself: it’s such a beautiful morning, I take my camera out and start snapping away as soon as we leave the city limits.