AVA Convention Begins - Wed., June 7, 2017

What's the first thing you do at a walking convention? Walk, of course. 

Today's walk was supposed to take us around Norm Schoenthal's Island in the Yellowstone River. As we all know, sometimes plans have to be made in Jell-o. Such was the case this morning. You see, with all the snowmelt, a number of places on the island were underwater because the Yellowstone River was quite high.

Trail underwater on the island

But I'm getting ahead of the morning walk. The walk started from the convention hotel. We walked through a neighborhood, then headed into beautiful park spaces along the Yellowstone River and beside a lake. 

This adorable bird was sitting in the nest box

Bridge to Norm Schoenthal's Island

 You can see we have another gorgeous walking day.

The trails on the island looked good to begin with. Susan, Darren, and I were going to walk as far as we could, then turn around and leave the island. We came to a place in the trail where there was a little water over the trail. It was easy to get around. Susan decided she didn't want to go any farther on this path, so Darren and she turned around. I decided to stay on this trail until the water was too deep to continue.

On the island

Uh-oh, we found the deep water over the trail.
This is where this group turned around.

We went back to another trail and followed it until we again had deep water, and then we all left the island to continue with the rest of the walk. The Yellowstone River was raging alongside our path. 

Yellowstone River through Billings, Montana

Yellowstone River

Pretty, peaceful trail

Red-winged blackbird

Red-winged blackbird

Ruddy ducks have blue bills

 As we walked around the lake, a gaggle of geese walked around our group. You can see lots of "teen-age" birds.

Watering the park

Well-behaved goslings

After looping the lake, we headed back to the convention hotel. I was walking with other people because after Susan and Darren split off at the beginning of the walk, I didn't see them again for the rest of the day.

Unknown (to me) Volksmarchers

Once back at the hotel, I took my aching body (especially my feet and legs) to the hot tub and spent about 20 minutes letting the bubbles soothe my aching muscles. I went back to the room for the rest of the afternoon. In the evening, we had an opening Meet & Greet dinner out in the courtyard. From my room, I could see the line for the buffet. When the line subsided, I headed down for dinner. The San Antonio contingent was seated by the buffet line so I sat with them for a while. 

Darren came down to let us know Susan was exhausted and crashed out in the room. We'll reconnect tomorrow.Travel Bug out.