An Easter coulee walk

Easter Sunday afternoon turned out to be a bigger adventure than we were expecting. We were in Lethbridge to celebrate Easter with my husband's parents, and after church and lunch we decided to take the dog for a walk in the gorgeous coulees that line the Old Man River as it flows through town. Things are just starting to green up, and we saw some tiny flowers on the slopes, budding trees, and a very low river. It was a dry winter in Lethbridge, too.

Once we got to river level, we were out of the wind and enjoying a pleasant afternoon. Christina brought her gear for making #coffeeoutside. We had a few sips of some very strong coffee, skipped stones, took funny family pics and proceeded to walk twice as far as necessary to get back to where we started. We cut through a NO DOGS ALLOWED cemetery at the end, rather than climb down and up three more steep valleys. It was a pretty good three hour hike if you ask me. Here are a few picture highlights.

Lots of cottonwoods along the river's edge...

and pussywillows...

An old tree that hung out over the river provided a peaceful perch...

Cooking coffee...

heading back... but shouldn't we be going the other way?

Julia is the little spot on top of the middle hill...

this isn't going to get us back...

we're parked a few gullies to the right...

down, and up...

and down and up again...

no more downs or ups -- Christina cheers...

cutting through the graveyard to avoid a few more gullies...

with the little black dog hidden in Lee's jacket...

My good old Canon camera died, so these are rather sad shots from an iPod touch, but you get the idea. If you ever get to Lethbridge, Alberta, a coulee walk is not to be missed!

Happy Easter! We're still in the octave...