Fall near Strawberry Reservoir

As we're having a school unit about fish [or Oceans, to be precise, but river salmon will do for our purposes] at the moment, we took a little field trip up to Strawberry Reservoir to see the Kokanee Salmon spawning. Spawning salmon are super interesting. Do you know they change color (from silver to bright red) and their whole heads change shape as they swim upstream to spawn? And did you know they don't eat ever again from the time they start their journey? They just swim home, lay their eggs, and die.

Having read about the salmon before going, we were delighted that there actually were some for us to see! Just as promised, they were bright red and had those weird big jaws and noses. Look at the difference:

Regular salmon

Spawning salmon

Poor salmon, they looked tired. But on the other hand, once they lay their eggs, they're done! They get to rest. And their kids can fend for themselves! That sounds…kind of nice.

We took a picnic with us, of course, and it was the most beautiful day! We don't drive up that way very often so it was fun to see the beautiful leaves. Even the underbrush was colorful!

We wanted to find the very prettiest spot for our picnic, and when we saw this bright orange aspen grove, we knew that was the place. It was tucked away up behind some hills, yellow on one side and orange on the other. So beautiful!

There was a bit of a mud pit to get through, but luckily we were in our van, so we weren't scared of it.

And the orange trees were even prettier close up!

We sent out scouts to find the best place to eat. There go Goldie and Teddy.

I love orange aspens! Of course I love yellow ones too. But orange is so surprising!

Daisy cavorting like Snow White

Gus and Clementine found this little teeter-totter

And here is the lovely spot we found for our picnic. A beautiful yellow grove!

Ziggy had a scab on his knee that was bothering him, so he had his pants like this for several days. Quite a fashion statement.

I love these leaves, like gold coins in the grass

Clementine wearing Goldie's hat

Oh, these two little sweeties

Clementine looked so cute in this dress I got her at D.I. But she has reservations about it because it has a bow at the waist. ?!? I don't know why or what she has against bows? But she can't stop talking about it. "It has a bow. Why does it have a bow? Does my purple dress have a bow? I don't like a bow." It's a miracle we talked her into wearing this dress at all, she was so leery about the bow. (Which, I should note, you can barely even SEE.)