The Journey Home Begins

We headed out of Fairbanks with a new travel schedule. Now we were driving a lot at night in search of the Northern Lights for the first few days. We enjoyed seeing them again and again for two-three nights.

One of our first daytime photo stops was for a little flow of water in a roadside ditch that had some cool ice formations.

 

 

I get confused along the journey home. We drive so many miles per day, that when I get home I can't remember where things were. I can remember what the area looked like but have little idea of where it's located in relation to other places along the road. The Fisherman remembers it all. He's made the trip over a dozen times, going one direction or the other.  He remembered a beautiful rest stop and pulled in to show me. As we walked down the path through the woods, suddenly the trees opened up to reveal a river.

 

A beautiful scene.

We climbed down the bank and walked next to the water. As is my habit, I was looking down a lot as I walked. I found this weird little hole with frost all around it.

How did that happen? Why only that hole and not the other one with the rock partially moved? Funny.

Just in front of my little frozen hole was this staircase made of tree roots. How cool is that?

I climbed the stairs and we hit the road again.

This has become one of my favorite places to stop along the way home.

It's easy to see why these guys are called Stone Sheep. Like all mountain sheep and goats, they hang out in the rocks and they seem perfectly camouflaged among the grey stones of their domain.

We watched this herd come down from the mountain and into the grassy area beside the road.

This, I know, was in Canada.

It was my best and closest look at these creatures and for the first time I noticed the coloration on their legs. The fronts of their legs are dark and the backs are white. Interesting.

A baby! Baby animals are always so darn cute.

Sheep butts.

And off they go! Right down the middle of the road.

When we first stopped for the couple of sheep coming down from the mountain, up ahead of us around a curve we heard the horn blast of a big semi. We knew what that meant: sheep in the road. We waited around, eating some lunch, for the rest of the herd to come along. They joined up with the other ones and eventually moved on past, right down the middle of the road again.

The eased their way to the wide shoulder of the road and kept on a-going.