Outdoors Galore

In a manic effort to enjoy our six days of summer and avoid smoking, I was physically active for about five or six hours from Tuesday through Wednesday afternoon.  Tuesday evening I tried paddling in a dragon boat...though 'paddling' hardly begins to describe the exertion nor does this idylic view of Minnette Bay:

It was the most perfect of all evenings to be on the water though I had to leave my camera behind since it would have gotten thoroughly soaked.  Always nice to grab a glimpse of our sometimes bee-hee-ootiful surroundings.

Wednesday morning, I went on a 3 hour hike around upper and lower Clearwater Lakes and their connecting stream.  The light was perfection so I snapped over 80 photos hoping to find a painting composition or two in the batch.

We discovered newest Biggest Mushroom I've Ever Seen, with my bruised and wrinkled hand in there for scale.  The way this year is going I expect that record's liable to be broken weekly.

Bonus spectacle!!  When we returned to Onion Lake we noticed tadpoles the size and colour of black olives swarming by the shore.  We surmised that this was for the dual purpose of stirring up silt to feed and soak up some warmth from the sun.  They gradually gathered around any branches or rocks sticking up out of the water; the early maturers equipped with their complete set of legs perched right on top and below them, various stages of development descending into the water, looking like an evolution chart.
Those big kids with their legs, they get all the cool stuff!