E: AlCan Mile 477: Liard Hotsprings and Zoe

Zoe is the living Masthead for the good land-ship StCrain.  Zoe has logged over 40,000 miles in RV's and takes her job of watchman and entertainer seriously.  She had a bit of a health problem at the start of the Fantasy trip, but thankfully, by the time we reached Liard, she was her old self: leaping from chair to chair; and skulking the area on a regular basis.

 

Liard Springs is a wide spot in the road with two large RV parks that service the major attraction:  a hot-springs-fed pool.  The pool is about hip deep with benches to sit and soak the slow moving stream.  The pool ends in a cascade that feeds a lower stream where it is joined by fresh water and cools down and most of the kids go to play.  This area is easily accessible via a boardwalk over about a half-mile of bog.

The biggest attraction to us was that a couple of buffalo were grazing near the entrance of the RV park.  These were not your diminutive bison you often see in the wild, but the big-humped, bearded, back-of-the-nickel, North American Buffalo.  It was rumored that they and their kin drifted in and out of the Park on a regular basis.  Laird was the second long-day, one-night stop for us, so we conked out and cannot account for any further Buffalo sightings that night.

However, as we began our trip the next morning, we came across a family of Buffalo along the highway and stopped beside the road to take their photos.  The instant I pulled open the window to get a clear shot, Zoe immediately shot toward the back bedroom of the RV.  And, she wouldn't come forward till well after we resumed the trip.  So, we can be pretty sure she saw Buffalo the night before, and was significantly frightened by their portent.

It's a pity that the Buffalo didn't appear earlier on our journey.  If they'd have frightened her that much when she was still bloated, it might have scared the symptoms (sic) right out of her ... saving her the indignity of that enema.

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