Weekend Update (with pictures)
Sep. 7th, 2004 10:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
plonqThis Sunday past, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
atara and I finally got overcome by cabin fever and decided to head out on another road adventure. Rather than break new ground, though, we opted to return to one of our previous destinations and drove up to The Narrows. It's a long round-trip (about 540km), and quite rugged and scenic in places. It also sports some decent stretches of highway on which to blow out some carbon (surprisingly it's 100KM pretty much the whole way).
Although it threatened to rain more than once during the trip, the weather held out the whole way and it was a very pleasant drive. I had hoped to get in a bit more walking than we did, but there really wasn't much to do once we got there. The locals were entertaining in a "back off slowly and maintain your distance" kind of way - especially the weird family who were squabbling over the town's pay phone. Uh... ya. Big hair, tight pants, 'nuff said.
The last time through we stopped and checked out the Thunderbird Nest on the other side of The Narrows, but we decided to give it a miss this time. The name is the best part of it. All the way back down the west side of the lake we kept our eyes open for interesting attractions, and finallyatara spied a sign for a bird preservation/marsh of some kind. Meh. A marsh in the middle of mosquito country - what could be wrong with that? The water level was really high, and parts of it were partially submerged, but aside from getting my feet wet and getting munched on by mosquitoes (I was covered to bad at one point that I looked like a walking Chia Pet), it was a nice hike.
Across the road from the marsh was a ranch with some draft horses and black (angus?) cows. The horses were very pretty, but the cows were more than a little creepy. Maybe it's a cow thing, but they just stood there unmoving from the moment we got out of the car until we ascended the hill toward the walkway out onto the marsh. They just stared, unblinking, unmoving. Their ears didn't twitch... nothing. The only sign of life from them was when their heads all slowly swivelled in unison to follow us as we walked past them.
Later, as we were out of sight, we heard an eery, haunting sound in the distance. We debated over whether it was Big Foot, or the mating call of an elk. Sarah recorded a bit of it with the camera, though the sound did not come through as clearly as we'd hoped. Later we figured out that it was one of the cows making that sound. I haven't been around cows much, but I've never heard one make a sound like that. Ever. These cows were not normal. It was the herd of Satan. It was shortly after this strange sound that the mosquitoes descended on us. Coincidence? (Well, maybe. It's also about that time that we left the open area and got into the woods...)
The rest of the trip was uneventful, if cathartic. I think we left a lot of stress unwound on the road behind us. We need to do that a few more times before the weather turns nasty.
atara and I finally got overcome by cabin fever and decided to head out on another road adventure. Rather than break new ground, though, we opted to return to one of our previous destinations and drove up to The Narrows. It's a long round-trip (about 540km), and quite rugged and scenic in places. It also sports some decent stretches of highway on which to blow out some carbon (surprisingly it's 100KM pretty much the whole way).Although it threatened to rain more than once during the trip, the weather held out the whole way and it was a very pleasant drive. I had hoped to get in a bit more walking than we did, but there really wasn't much to do once we got there. The locals were entertaining in a "back off slowly and maintain your distance" kind of way - especially the weird family who were squabbling over the town's pay phone. Uh... ya. Big hair, tight pants, 'nuff said.
The last time through we stopped and checked out the Thunderbird Nest on the other side of The Narrows, but we decided to give it a miss this time. The name is the best part of it. All the way back down the west side of the lake we kept our eyes open for interesting attractions, and finally
atara spied a sign for a bird preservation/marsh of some kind. Meh. A marsh in the middle of mosquito country - what could be wrong with that? The water level was really high, and parts of it were partially submerged, but aside from getting my feet wet and getting munched on by mosquitoes (I was covered to bad at one point that I looked like a walking Chia Pet), it was a nice hike.Across the road from the marsh was a ranch with some draft horses and black (angus?) cows. The horses were very pretty, but the cows were more than a little creepy. Maybe it's a cow thing, but they just stood there unmoving from the moment we got out of the car until we ascended the hill toward the walkway out onto the marsh. They just stared, unblinking, unmoving. Their ears didn't twitch... nothing. The only sign of life from them was when their heads all slowly swivelled in unison to follow us as we walked past them.
Later, as we were out of sight, we heard an eery, haunting sound in the distance. We debated over whether it was Big Foot, or the mating call of an elk. Sarah recorded a bit of it with the camera, though the sound did not come through as clearly as we'd hoped. Later we figured out that it was one of the cows making that sound. I haven't been around cows much, but I've never heard one make a sound like that. Ever. These cows were not normal. It was the herd of Satan. It was shortly after this strange sound that the mosquitoes descended on us. Coincidence? (Well, maybe. It's also about that time that we left the open area and got into the woods...)
The rest of the trip was uneventful, if cathartic. I think we left a lot of stress unwound on the road behind us. We need to do that a few more times before the weather turns nasty.
| Many of Manitoba's small towns sport big... things. Here is atara posing next to a giant goose. It swivels in the wind.The goose that is. |
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| The skies really do seem to go on forever out here in the flatlands. The painted look of the clouds is very typical around here... ...as are the clouds this year. Bleah. It's hard to see, but it's raining in patches under the clouds. |
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| During the trip we kept our eyes open for interesting-looking things to do. Here we found a marsh with a floating walkway where you could walk out and commune with the native birds and insects. A marsh in mosquito country. What could possibly go wrong with that? |
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| Across from the marsh were some very noble looking draft horses. They were very pretty and serene, and far less creepy than... |
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| ...the creepy cows from hell. They just stood there and stared, these cows. Nary a twitch of their ear, nor blink of their eye belied a sign of life. They were like undead cows, only moving their heads to follow us with their blank gazes as we walked. I think they wanted to eat my brains. Then the sounds started when we got out of sight. We both swore at first that it was Big Foot. Creepy creepy cows. |
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| Hmph. Turns out it was my car they were after all along. |
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no subject
Date: 2004-09-07 10:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-09-08 04:56 am (UTC)It would have been different if they had been shuffling around a bit, or making any kind of noise, but the silent, unmoving, unblinking stare was a bit unnerving. I couldn't shake the feeling that they were plotting something against us - especially when they put the moves on my car the moment we turned our backs on them.
no subject
Date: 2004-09-08 04:59 am (UTC)I'm posting this reply to you at 07:00 local time. Let's see what time LJ stamps it with, eh? =)
Your timestamps are East Coast time.
Date: 2004-09-08 09:38 am (UTC)I enjoyed the cow pics, they had cute faces. The behavior is fairly normal. (I can understand being creeped out though, the stare is a bit unnerving when in mass quantities like that.)
Re: Your timestamps are East Coast time.
Date: 2004-09-09 11:31 am (UTC)Re: Your timestamps are East Coast time.
Date: 2004-09-09 01:06 pm (UTC)Re: Your timestamps are East Coast time.
Date: 2004-09-09 01:54 pm (UTC)Re: Your timestamps are East Coast time.
Date: 2004-09-09 05:30 pm (UTC)