Playing Tourist in Alberta

  We had a great visit in Alberta, went back to Oliver for a couple of days, and then headed home.  I had my first farmers market last Saturday, and I had two days of heavy jam making to do to make up for my procrastinating.  On Friday morning, we had no internet, and it suddenly magically reconnected mid morning yesterday.   We had tried all sorts of things, and had left messages with the tech department of our internet provider (never heard back), so not sure why it was suddenly working three days later.  Anyway, I'm continuing on with our Alberta sage from the weekend before, which is old news now, but that's the way it goes.

On Sunday, when we were in snowy Alberta, we took a drive to Lethbridge. There was no snow in Lethbridge, but it was raining.  First we went down a lot of the gravel range roads, through a Hutterite colony, and then onto the freeway that we were a little too familiar with from Friday night's side trip.  Lethbridge seemed to have everything you wanted in the way of shopping.  It was built up above the river, which was down in a valley with coulees running down into it.  I couldn't help but notice all the trails and paths heading down, thinking what a great place to walk dogs:)  

There was this amazing train trestle that spanned the valley.

By the time we got back after our shopping trip, the snow had melted off the back lawn, and I tied the dogs out there for a bit, the sun was even out.  Now you'd figure the dogs would be glad for a change of scenery from the inside of the truck, but that is the only time that Luna 'complained'.  She kept doing this annoying little yip.

Monday morning the relatives were heading to work, and we were heading back to B.C.  It wasn't too far out of our way, so we decided to take a bit of a side trip and go to Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump.  

I think you can probably figure out what it was from that name.  Kind of gruesome when you think about it. 

 We had thought we could take the dogs for a walk there, but the first thing we see is a sign telling us that no pets are allowed on the site.  So we walked the trails and read the signs and were most disappointed that we couldn't get to the top.  You have to pay to do that, and the visitors center wasn't open for another hour.  In the end we took the dogs for a walk down the road to the overflow RV parking lot.  

Looking out to the east.

A raptor that landed below us.

Back out to the highway, into Fort Mcleod for a fill up with cheaper gas, and off to the west we headed.  It had been snowing a bit at the buffalo jump, and then it just got whiter and greyer and very wintery seeming.  

 I really find the windmills fascinating.

And then we passed over the Frank Slide.  The slid away mountain side was mostly hidden in the clouds, but no missing all that rock on either side of the road.  

The weather is more extreme here, so despite the slide happening more than 100 years ago, Mother Nature hadn't been able to disguise it at all.

Shortly after that we crossed back into B.C. and the clouds parted and we saw the sun. 

 The rest of the trip was a mixture of sun, cloud, rain, it seemed to change every 10 minutes.