Linda had been to Kimberly BC and had remembered it as a cute Barvarian themed town with a big cuckoo clock. We stopped in at the visitor centre and found that business had decided that they should get away from the Barvarian theme…not the best idea I thought. We had met a few people who appeared to be looking for that theme. Even the Cuckoo clock was broken.
We headed out to try our luck at Wasa Lake Provincial park…even though we didn’t have reservations…what a surprise…we snagged a site…
This was a lovely park with a cool hike
where we found this ukulele birdhouse.
This also gave us an overview of the area…
It was still pretty smoky…there was a lake to cool in as it was a hot couple of days. We even managed to get in a bike ride and a swim…yes, Linda made me get in the water of a lake. Even the cat liked it.
From there we drove through the Crowsnest pass going through a place called Sparwood where the world’s largest truck was…Linda is sitting in the wheel.
As I posted it on Facebook, a friend commented that she had driven that truck when she worked at the mines…what a coincidence! Simply awesome, I thought.
We continued to an famous landslide at a place called Frank…this was a devastating landslide where many people died as the side of a mountain came down on the town.
Our goal was Lethbridge!
We stayed at another Holiday Trails resort called Bridgeview and it was close enough that we were able to go a nice hike to the bridge.
There was this bird hunting away…it did have a partner but I couldn’t get them both in flight.
A train came along the bridge and that was so cool…I remembered my younger days when I would have attempted the crossing.
Along the park, near Fort Whoop-Up there is a Medicine Stone...legend has it that a native hunter saw a figure descend one of the coulees and sit down at the foot of it. He thought it was a medicine man and crossed the river to talk to it. When he arrived all he found was this granite rock. That night, while he slept near the rock, he had a dream where a person appeared and said “I am the rock you saw, I want you and your children to come and offer me peace offerings all the time” … there are still offerings being given.
Lethbridge was good, but we missed the Japanese garden this time; maybe on the return trip.
We headed up to Edmonton to see Linda’s son, but first a trip to Drumheller….wait…Vulcan was on the way…it had to be done!
We had heard about a place called Rowley, Alberta...a ghost town they said…so we went there first.
It had been used for a movie called Bye Bye Blues in 1989 and most of it was a film set with a few authentic buildings. Sam’s is a saloon that currently has a pizza night on the last Saturday of the month.
Rowley had a train station converted to a museum. We took advantage of a free tour of this and the other buildings. Ok…we tipped the tour guide.
Then we found this old RV…
It really was a mobile home for the workers…strange.
The Tyrell museum and dinosaurs are next…this was a room with various flora that has descended from dinosaur’s time.