Pincher Creek, Alberta

Sunday/Monday - Sept. 5-6 - On our way back from the rodeo, it started raining again, and continued to rain about all night.  It got pretty cold, 44 I think.  Marilyn's sister and brother-in-law, Linda and Gordie, had driven out from Calgary and were spending the night with them.  Collins grilled steaks for all of us, in the rain, and we had a nice visit with them.

Sunday morning, I got the laundry caught up again, and Marilyn fixed biscuits and gravy for the group, then we headed out to Pincher Creek, in the rain.  It was pretty nasty, cold, and we noticed the raindrops on our windshield were getting a little slushy.  We kept discussing whether or not it was sleeting or snowing, or just raining, but we went up an little bit of a hill, and it was definitely snowing!

We went a little further, and there was ground cover!

 kjh

 But it didn't last too long and we were back down in the rain.  Collins and Marilyn had missed a turn on our Cowboy Trail highway, so they were about 15 minutes behind us.  We arranged to meet at the Walmart in Pincher Creek.  As we came up on hill, we saw a windmill farm behind the town. 

As we turned off Highway 6 into town, there was a nice artistic display of a cowboy herding cattle.  This area is known as "where the prairies meet the mountains," and we could see the Rockies in the distance.

 We met up with the Brundiges, then drove on through town and to the campground where Judy and Jerry (our hosts in May at Kingsgate and Collins' cousin) were waiting for us.  This campground was right on Waterton Dam, but we were the only ones there since the weather had turned so nasty.  Jerry and Judy had arrived on Saturday, and Jerry had gone fishing this morning and caught a real nice Northern Pike.  We "circled the wagons" to keep the wind out, and Jerry had a campfire going already.  Judy's daughter and her family drove out for dinner, which they brought with them, so we had a nice visit with them.

Monday morning was sunny, so we walked down to the lake.  One brave family was launching their boat -- they were the only ones on the lake.  There was a nice pier here, but only the seagulls were enjoying it.

I scared them away, though.

Collins and Jerry took a rest break, so I walked out on the pier.  I really had to watch my step, since the birds had left their impact on it.  The mountains behind me, with last night's snow, were really beautiful.

After breakfast, we headed to Cardston, where the Remington Carriage Museum is located.  Don Remington donated his collection of 48 carriages to the Province of Alberta under the stipulation that the province would build a building to display them.  The Museum has added to the original collection and has about 275 carriages now, most on display here but some at a storage facility in Lethbridge.  The Remington Carriage Museum collection of horse drawn vehicles is the largest in North America, and the second largest in the world.

Cardston is also the home of George Woolf, the jockey who rode Sea Biscuit to victory.  There is a statute outside the Museum of this, and a wall of photos from Sea Biscuit's races.

We took a guided tour, which was extremely interesting, then walked around on our own afterward and watched the movie. 

There was a wide variety of carriages, horse-drawn and horse-less, and several sleighs. 

We got to step inside this next one, and the tour guide rocked it so we could see what the ride would have been like.

There is also a tack room here, and when Don Remington passed away his family donated his bridles and tack to the museum. 

There is also a workshop here, staffed by 2 men in their 70s, and a volunteer in his 50s, who do restoration work, mostly for individuals.  They do some work for the museum, but most of their work is for people who bring in old carriages to be restored for themselves.  Collins would like to volunteer some of his time here.

Two of the carriages we thought would be of interest to Cody are the school buses below.

We finished the tour there and stopped in town for lunch, then headed back to camp to move our rigs to Todd's place.  Todd (Judy's son) and his family had gone camping for the weekend and were not home yet, but we invaded their territory  anyway.  Joe and Jerry are relaxing outside Jerry's 5th wheel.  You can see that Jerry has removed his artificial leg as he relaxes.

I went out to take some pictures just as Todd pulled into their drive-way.

From his ranch, you can see for miles and miles.  His house was built in 1898, and he has cattle, some horses, llama, many dogs, some cats, a goat and one of his kids has a hampster.  There may be other critters we haven't met yet.

We had a cook-out with Todd's family -- one of his boys grilled the burgers and hot dogs -- and we actually were able to sit out on the deck to eat.  But as soon as the sun went down, we all headed indoors, it gets cold fast out here on the prairie!

We are heading out tomorrow for the national parks, so I don't know if we'll have internet or phone service for a few days. 

But we are really looking forward to seeing some bears in these parks!

Cochrane - More Rodeo

Saturday, Sept. 3 - We went back into town for the rodeo, even though the weather was threatening.  We took our lawn chairs with us today, and got set up early, before the rodeo started.  We were at the top of the hill, and kids love rolling down hills.  This little guy entertained us for a while.

We could definitely tell that we are in Cowboy Country.

The rodeo got underway with the queen and princess, and the flag riders, and we had our first opportunity to stand for the playing of the Canadian National Anthem.

The first event was calf roping, and there were several contestants for this event.  However, the barrier that stretches across the pen for the calf to break somehow quit functioning properly, and they had to go on to the next event, bareback riding, while they worked on that.  This is the barrier that costs the rider a 10-second penalty if he takes off before the calf breaks the barrier.

The weather became an issue as the afternoon wore on, and it finally started to rain in earnest, so we went back to the car for a while.  Fortunately, we had front-row parking again today, so we could watch the events from the car.  It quit raining, so we ventured back out for the second half of the rodeo.  The first event after the intermission was mutton bustin', and the competitors ranged in age from 3 to 6.  This was the best event of the entire rodeo, and we could imagine our Indiana nieces loving something like this.

The mutton bustin' was sponsored by our new favorite donut franchise, Tim Hortons, so we were big fans of this event, but it really was fun to watch these little kids.  The clowns stayed close and sometimes snatched them off the sheep before they hit the ground, but not always.  One little girl got up spitting dirt out of her mouth.

Then it started to rain again.  Here we are, cuddled up trying to keep warm.  It's probably about 55 degrees, and it's windy as well.

Joe's umbrella had a slight malfunction, though.

But there we are, freezing, when something like this walks by!

Now I know our blood has thinned!  These Canadians think because it's still summer, it's time to wear shorts.

Next came barrel racing, and they had 2 divisions - ladies and juniors.  I think the junior age was 16 and under.

There were not many saddle bronc riders, and I think only one made it the distance (8 seconds).

 

The last event of the day was bull riding.  This was about 4:00 and suddenly the sun came out, and there was warmth!  

 Remember, you can click on the pictures to enlarge them.  It was fun going to a small-town rodeo, and we enjoyed the afternoon, even though it was a little cold.  As we drove into the campground, we saw geese coming down in the field next to us, settling down for the night.  We had heard geese taking off this morning, and there are plenty of fields around here for them.  They obviously know it is time to head south.

Cochrane Rancher's Rodeo

Friday, Sept. 3 - Yesterday turned out to be one of the nicest days, weather-wise, we've had all summer, and today was equally as nice.  Pretty chilly in the morning, but by the afternoon, it was in the 70s and sunny.  We washed the dirty old RV this morning, trying to remove some of the road dirt.  This campground allowed us to wash it them at the site, so we took advantage of that opportunity.  Collins washed his too, and his car, but we didn't do our car since he had taken ours through a carwash the day before.  Marilyn's sister drove out from Calgary to visit  so after we had some lunch and rest, Joe and I drove into town to see if we could find the rodeo.

By the time we found it, the Friday rodeo was only a half-hour from starting.  The Friday rodeo was the ranch rodeo, and local ranchers (and their families) were the competitors.  Their events were more like the real-life events that take place on the ranch every day.  The first picture was the riders just warming up, but there were probably 9 or 10 different ranchers participating.

The first event was "branding," and they had to rope the calf in the pen, drag it outside the pen, brand it (with chalk), and release the calf.

The second event was cattle penning, where a team of 4 sorted out certain cattle by number and drove them down to a pen on the opposite end of the arena.  They did not use ropes to pick out the calf, they just used their horse.  They had 3 calves of the same number to sort out, and they had to keep the ones they had driven down to the other end from crossing back over a foul line, or they were disqualified.

The next event was sorting, which was similar to the penning, but they had to sort out the calves starting at a certain number, then sequentially the next ones up to 9 calves.  So a team (of 4 riders) might start with number 5, then have to get 6, 7, 8, etc.  The most we saw sorted was 5, and that was by a team of women.

Their next event was rustling, where the rider team of 4 had to sort out a certain numbered calf, load it into a horse trailer, then load 2 horses.  All of these events were timed, so they also had to "beat the clock."

The final event was called "doctoring," and they had to rope a certain numbered calf, both neck and back legs, get it downed, then dot its forehead with a dobber to indicate it had been "treated."  So usually all 4 riders were twirling ropes to get ready to get one roped.

It was all fun to watch.  The rodeo pros will compete the rest of the weekend, but it was interesting to watch these cowboys at work.  During the course of the rodeo, a little 2-year-old boy got lost, but he was found out on the street, outside the rodeo grounds.  At the end of the rodeo, the announcer also had something else that was found -- a set of top dentures.  We didn't wait around to see who claimed them, once Joe assured himself that his were in place.

Cowboy Trail

Wednesday/Thursday - Sept. 1-2.  This morning we said goodbye to Dave and Mazie, and Ar'gent.  They are headed to Medicine Hat, then over to the Crazy Horse area in South Dakota. 

We had a lot of fun with them and really enjoyed traveling with them.  Joe even said his goodbyes to Ar'gent (who probably won't miss him, since Joe teases her unmercifully).

 

We headed out about an later, but we only went about 20 miles to the Leduc Energy Museum, a history of oil and gas exploration in this area.  We toured the museum and watch their video, but it started raining when we went outside so we didn't get to look over too much of their outside exhibits.

We climbed up on the derrick and Joe relived some of his days of working on SRP's water wells.

We cut across Alberta on Hwy 39 to get back west to Hwy 22, known as the Cowboy Trail.  We saw some interesting sights on and along these highways.  The first was a very long trailer (32 axles, a minimum of 128 tires) loaded with a propane storage tank.  We saw a second one of these a few miles later, but part of the trailer was missing.

A little later, we met two "wide loads," moving some other kinds of big storage tanks - we assume for the oil fields.

These things coming at us certainly woke us up!  We saw a lot of livestock on the Cowboy Trail, cattle and horse ranches, some sheep, and one alpaca ranch.  There were a lot of fields of grain, and we think canola, and the round bales of hay dotted the fields that had already been cut.

We found a campground outside of the town of Rocky Mountain House, which turned out to be one of the prettiest campgrounds we have stayed out.  It was very grassy, and amazingly not muddy. 

 

 

It had rained during the day but finally cleared off, and we saw our first frost on Thursday morning.

 

 

We broke camp and pulled our rigs into town beside the Tim Horton donut shop, then (after we had our donuts) we went looking for the Rocky Mountain House Historic Site.  We had a little trouble finding it (outside of town a couple of miles), but we saw several deer along the way.  We ended up seeing 9 deer in total today, but one posed for us very nicely.

 

This one was a little rough looking.  We saw a mama deer with two fawns later.  We finally found our historic site, and spent several hours touring it and watching the videos.  This fort was the site of major fur trading during the 1800s.

 

All of the sites we have toured that Canada Parks has done have really been good.  They do a very nice job with their monuments and historic sites.

 

Joe, ever the fashion plate, is seen here modeling a buffalo robe and wolverine hat.

He liked the hat and it fit well, but he thought the robe must have come from a cow buffalo, and he, being the manly wide-body that he is, needs one from a bull. 

Finally, we left there and found some lunch in town (A and W Rootbeer again), then headed south.  Our next stop was in the town of Caroline, known as the home of Ice Skating World Champion Kurt Browning.  We stopped at his arena and looked over the trophies and awards on display there.  His house (I forget what city in Canada) burned down just a month or so ago, so these may be the only trophies and awards that are around - we don't know that, though.

Our destination for the night was Cochrane, because there is a rodeo there this weekend.  We pulled into our campground about 5:30, and got set up for the next 3 days.  Mazie called and said they were in Havers, Montana, so they are obviously making better time than we are.  But Dave is worried that it's going to get cold on them before they get home, so he is motivated.  We KNOW it's going to get cold on us, so we are not even trying to outrun the weather.