Think Back Thursday: Animals

We live a long way from where I grew up, so we don't often visit there.  In fact, the pictures I'm sharing today were from our last family trip, and that was almost five years ago!  While visiting my parents that winter, we took a trip to Banff National Park.  The scenery is incredible, but the kids' attention was often on the sights a little closer to us.

Like this lone elk...

Wait, did I say "lone"?  Turns out he was probably an advance scout.  Here are his friends:

As we continued down the road, we met this fine fellow -

and as it turned out, he was more interested in using our vehicle as a salt lick than in us.

Bighorn sheep, elk and deer and common sights throughout the park.

It's a little less common to see mountain goats, moose, or bears.  This kind of bear is a bit safer to get close to anyway.

It's not like we don't see plenty of deer here in Maryland, but seeing elk and bighorn sheep was something a little different for the kids.  And brought back lots of memories from my growing up close enough to Banff to visit there frequently.  We went on many camping trips and I remember one time in particular when a bear wandered through our campground during the night and rummaged around our picnic table a bit.  In the morning we found one of the plastic mugs that had been used for hot chocolate and not properly put away with deep tooth marks - kind of neat souvenir of the bear's visit!  If only Dad had known I'd wanted to keep it! LOL

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Think Back Thursday is a photo meme that encourages sharing something from the past.  It is hosted by Debbie's Digest.  You can find out more about it, and how you can participate, by clicking the link or the button below.