Great Sand Hills

The Great Sand Hills were really interesting. They are on private land, but people are still encouraged to go view them. To get there you have to drive on gravel roads for quite a ways, and then you get to a little dirt parking area within a few meters of a couple of the sand hills. You are not allowed to camp there, which is unfortunate, but I imagine that is to try to prevent partiers from ruining a beautiful area. We got there at three in the morning (it's a long drive from Edmonton when you leave after work) and slept in the car for a few hours. Our rented car was a Ford Focus wagon, so there was some room in the back, but the back seat doesn't fold flat, so it's not a great sleeping vehicle. Anyway, I got up before the sun came up and went walking up and around the hills. There was a flock of robins there in the little groves of trees (this was early spring so they were migrating), and they provided the soundtrack for the morning. There are other birds as well - apparently quite a few people go birdwatching there. I did see a grouse, a woodpecker and a bunch of blackbirds as well, but the robins were most plentiful. It was perfectly calm when I got up, but as the morning progressed, the wind picked up and the sand started blowing. It was pretty cool to see the sand dunes close over Anna's feet in a couple minutes. Most of the dunes are grown over with grass and shrubs, but a fair number of them are live and moving. They are big too - about 30 feet tall and hundreds of feet across. But when you get up to the top of one, and look out as far as you can see, it still is Saskatchewan - pretty flat with a huge sky. The sand is incredibly soft, softer than the beaches in Barbados, and great fun to jump around in.