Adventures in the Villa

We spent three days in Langley, on Whidbey Island, WA, mostly being lazy. As you know, we are lousy tourists, avoiding tourist sites and activities…

We are visiting my best architect friends, whom I’ve known over 50 years. This is the little retirement home they built for themselves in Langley, on Whidbey Island, a few years ago…

The house sits atop a bluff high above the Puget Sound, looking across to Camano Island…

On Friday 12 we walked onto the ferry and traveled across to Port Townsend, on the Olympic Peninsula…

Port Townsend is a fine old town that is great for walking about…

We visited a Farmers’ Market, and explored a few shops.

I like to peer into windows…

We had lunch at a restaurant set amidst the harbor the the RV Park…

Here are David and Kim, and Lynda. I have worked on and off with David at various firms since 1974…

After lunch and a mid-afternoon drink we ferried back to Whidbey Island…

Back in the house we had time for fun and games…

And plenty time for doing nothing…

The sun sets at about 10:00pm here; their weather is usually cloudy, thus no window coverings. We went to bed with the sun in our faces, and woke up to the same…

After three days of fun in Langley we drove north again to Bellingham so see my brother, Jim, and his wife Pam. We enjoyed this bottle of 19 year old Washington wine from Walla Walla. Jim had brought it to our house about 15 years ago, asking that I keep it in my cellar, and saying that we would drink it in a few years. Well, we kept forgetting to drink it, so this time we brought it with is…

It was great!

One of the first things we did in Bellingham was to go for a boat ride…

And quite a boat ride it was… This is Zodiac, a 127′ pleasure yacht built for heirs of the Johnson & Johnson family in 1924, so she is 100 years old. It has been fully restored and is used primarily for training sailors to operate a historic schooner just like in the olden days. There are 12 crew members, plus a captain and a mate. The volunteer crew spends the summer learning everything there is to know…

Jim and I mostly just stood around and watched…

If you know where to look you can see Jim and Pam’s house on the hill overlooking Bellingham Bay.

Below deck are the kitchen, a lounge, several staterooms and several bunks. You can take 3-7 day trips if you are so inclined. We opted for the three hour tour…

Pam, of course, found the cat…

When it was time to raise the sails the crew did the hard work, but the rest of us pitched in to help with the easy stuff…

Soon sails were raised…

We even had a view of Mt. Baker in the distance over Western Washington University in Bellingham…

Taking down the sails was even more work…

Back at Jim and Pam’s house we enjoyed a view of the bay and the setting sun…

Jim and I took a drive into the country, then we stopped for lunch in this restored Victorian office building in Fairhaven. Fairhaven used to be a separate city, but it was incorporated into Bellingham many years ago. Jim and Pam live in old Fairhaven. This is where the ferries and cruise ships depart, and there is also an Amtrak station… And lots of freight trains…

One last view of the sunset…

Wednesday 17 we left Bellingham at 5:30am. We drove back down to Whidbey Island, fueled up, picked up the Airstream, and headed south. Slowly. We suffered through 50 miles of horrible traffic in the Seattle area. Our destination is Silverton, Oregon, home of the Gordon House, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright…

Our tour was to start at 2:00. We arrived at exactly 2:00…

The house was designed by FLlW in the late 50s, shortly before his death. It was built on the banks of the Willamette River in 1963. It was moved here to spare it from the wrecking ball in 2000.

It is a modest house, a classic Usonian, very similar to many other FLlW houses that we have seen across the country…

We had an enjoyable visit, of course… We camped in Silverton overnight…

Thursday 18 we headed southwest from Silverton and soon we were parked on a small residential street in Corvallis, OR, adjacent to Oregon State University.

As you may know, our son is a professor of Organic Chemistry at OSU. But he has never been here. He is part of OSU’s “E-Campus”, one of the largest and oldest online college programs in the country. He teaches from his home office in our home in Redlands, CA. So, naturally, he wanted to see what it looked like. We found Gilbert Hall…

Gilbert Hall is one of the older buildings on campus, and suffers from some physical and technical shortcomings…

But it is an impressive building, and it is slated to be upgraded soon…

We found a chemistry researcher to take our picture…

Soon we were on our way…

We headed towards the coast. About halfway there we found the Half-Way Cafe. Good lunch!

We drove down the Oregon Coast and crossed over the Rogue River into the town of Gold Beach…

We spent the night in a small RV park set back off the road.

Friday 19 we continued down the Oregon Coast…

We soon found ourselves in the Redwoods, driving along the “Avenue of the Giants”…

We finally arrived in the tiny town of Windsor, CA, just outside Healdsburg. We had a 2:00 appointment to do a little wine tasting at Browne Family Wines. We arrived at exactly 2:00…

Michael Browne was one half of the founding partnership of Kosta Browne Wines. We’ve been big fans of Kosta Browne since about 2011. Kosta and Browne sold their winery several years later (to Duckhorn…) and Kosta and Browne went their separate ways. Kosta now makes Convene (which we visited last year…) and Browne makes Chev and Cirq, two different labels. This is our first chance to visit Chev and Cirq…

They have a beautiful facility here in Windsor. We were finally told about the names. Chev wines are named after Michael Browne’s father’s love of Chevrolets. There are several old fully restored and customized Chevy trucks here at the winery… Chev makes several different Pinot Noirs from Russian River Valley, Santa Rita Hills, and Santa Lucia Highlands. Cirq is their top-of-the-line Browne Family Wine. It’s name is reminiscent of Michael Browne’s youth, when he was a circus performer, as a juggler, fire-eater, unicyclist, and trapeze artist. Cirq only makes one wine, a Pinot Noir from Russian River Valley.

We had a great tour and tasting of their beautiful facility…

Then it was time to find our camping spot for the next two nights. We camped at Russell Vineyards, just off Westside Road, located between Williams Selyem and MacRostie Wineries…

Bruce Russell met us at the gate, and he told us where to park. It’s hot here these days. So we set up the Villa and we headed into Healdsburg for some refreshment…

After a few hours we drove back to Russell. At 7:00 he drove us up to his vineyard. He is a unique character. He grew up in this area. He owns 209 acres of land, but it’s located about a mile, up a hill, from Westside Road. He has 2 acres planted to Syrah grapes. Up until a few years ago he sold his crop to Ravenswood. Now he sells it to wine lovers with RVs who park on his land…

Since his family has owned land here for so long he has water rights, and a pipeline about two miles long down to a well adjacent to the Russian River… And he grows his grapes pretty much by himself, here atop this hill far away from neighbors…

But he only spend about four months of the year here – basically summer and early fall. Otherwise he lives in Detroit, MI, where is is a professior of Philosophy at Wayne State University…

So we sat around and drank his wine while he told stories of growing up here, of attending a one-room schoolhouse, and getting a BS degree in Math and a Ph.D from UC Davis…

When it was finally cool enough to enter the Villa, we retired for the night…

Saturday 20 we started our day with breakfast in Healdsburg, then a 10:00 tasting at the Mecca of Tasting Rooms – Williams Selyem…

As usual the tasting was great! We even bought a few bottles that we had never tried before…

Lynda enjoyed the vineyards…

Then we headed for the coast. I wanted to get to see Sea Ranch, a 1970-1980 development along the Mendocino coast. It has won awards for planning, environmental sensitivity, and architecture. But first you have to get there… Saturday traffic was brutal heading west to the coast. Heading north along the coast is beautiful, and treacherous…

Hairpin turns everywhere. I would have rather been in the Z-3 than in the Silverado 3500…

Finally we arrived at Sea Ranch. Beautiful place. Unfortunately, the main lodge and restaurant were closed for a wedding…

We headed east on a tiny road that got tinier and tinier. Not a good place to get stuck. After two hours of twisting turns we found ourselves just north of Healdsburg, where we stopped for a little refreshment…

At 5:00 we went to MacRostie Winery for one of their summer parties. And we partied…

Such a beautiful place!

We returned to the Villa…

Sunday 21 we headed south, like a horse heading back to the barn. We are almost home. This is familiar territory…

Down the 101, across the Richmond Bridge, down the 580, to the 5 and south to beautiful Coalinga…

Amazingly, this is not the worst trailer park we have stayed in.

At least this park has a pool!

Monday 22 we headed south again. We stopped in Lebec for our traditional lunch at In-n-Out, then we powered over the Grapevine and arrived safely in Burbank…

Rather than fight afternoon traffic out the 210 we parked at the curb in front of our daughter’s house. She was working, so we walked over for a nice dinner at Los Amigos with the Thundering Herd… – nerds all of them, with their noses in their books…

Tuesday 23 we made the 1 1/2 hour drive home to Redlands… Time to shave…

An enjoyable time was had by all…

38 days, 5,695 miles; 9 States, 2 Canadian Provinces, 6 National Parks, one windshield…

Bright and early on Tuesday, July 9, we left the caravaners in Cochrane and headed west, on our own…

We retraced our path through Banff and Jasper, continuing on generally west… We drove through these beautiful mountain vistas…

We parked in Revelstoke, in a hot-springs RV “resort”… It’s a relatively primitive area…

We spent the night, enjoying a quiet evening…

10 Wednesday we continued on. We are not being tourists – we’re travelers with a destination…

We did enjoy views of this lake as we continued towards the southwest…

After a relatively harrowing drive down highway 5, we stopped for the night in Hope, BC…

It took us a while to find the very friendly host, and we found our campsite. Not to cast aspersions, but this place had the feel of the Bates Motel of RV parks…

Bright and early on Thursday, July 11, we broke camp, fueled up, and headed south to the border…

We had a 30 minute wait, with only one gate open, but soon we were driving through Sumas, WA.

After Sumas, we found ourselves in the Dutch community of Lyndon, WA.

We continued south, skirting Bellingham, and onto Whidbey Island. We dropped the Airstream at a “Airstream Courtesy Parking” spot in Oak Harbor, and continued south to Langley. We soon were at our friends’ house…

This is the waterfront house of David and Kim Smith. They are both architects, and lived until a few years ago in Laguna Beach, CA. I’ve worked with David on and off since 1974…

We settled into our luxury guest suite. We will spend 3 nights here…

An enjoyable time was had by all…

We left Banff in the morning of July 5 for a short drive to Cochrane, AB, in preparation for attending two days of this extravaganza that is the Calgary Stampede.

The Calgary Stampede is an annual, 10-day rodeo, exhibition and festival held every July in Calgary, Alberta. It attracts over one million visitors per year and features one of the world’s largest rodeos, a parade, stage shows, concerts, agricultural competitions, chuckwagon racing and First Nations exhibitions.

First, some unfinished business: I told you about Stacy and Amy, the two “girls” who handles all the food preparation and serving at the 5-6 cook-out dinners we had as a group in the various campgrounds; here I was finally able to get a picture of them, along with their dog, Hank:

Again, the meals were great and were enjoyed by all…

So on our first night in Cochrane we met for Happy Hours in the Rec Room…

The caravaners all seem quite excited about the Stampede. We were visited by an “ambassador” of the Stampede who talked about the history of Alberta and its cowboy days… And we were all bestowed with white cowboy hats…

So we returned to the Villa…

On Saturday, July 6, The bus picked up the caravaners for the drive to Calgary and the Stampede. All the caravaners, that is, except us…

I’ve attended a rodeo before. I saw terrified animals being chased, roped, hog-tied and being generally abused, including one being shot dead right in the arena. No thanks – we’ll pass on the rodeo. We will attend the stage show the next day…

So we had a leisurely day along in the campground, doing laundry, catching up on emails (great internet access here!), and relaxing.

Our original plan for this day was to visit Jarvie, the tiny town 80 miles north of Edmonton, where my Great-Grandparents and several other Dutch immigrants settled on homesteads in the early 1900s. The family included my grandparents (both families) and many cousins. My father was born a log cabin on the homestead outside Jarvie in 1918.

Alas, there are no relatives of mine left in Jarvie. My Grandparents along with four children left Jarvie and moved to Everett, Washington in about 1920. Four more children were born there. The Terhorst family moved to Los Angeles in 1936… Other Terhorst relatives moved away to various places until only one family (my great Uncle, Henry) was left. The last communication I had was with the widow of the last Terhorst, and she has moved to Edmonton. She has little contact with any other Terhorst relatives in the area…

Since it is about a 5 hour drive (one way) from Cochrane to Jarvie, and Jarvie is pretty much a ghost town, we decided to skip it…

We walked along the adjacent river… Unbeknownst to us this is an off-leash dog park… Lots of loose dogs running about…

Nice houses across the river.

Nice old bridge crossing the river…

That’s the RV Park on the left…

After our walk we drove to the town of Cochrane. We stocked up on cheap wine in the giant new shopping center just outside of town, then found this wonderful little restaurant in the historic downtown…

We shared a few appetizers and a nice bottle of Rioja…

We returned to the Villa…

Sunday July 7… Our morning was again free; at 3:00 we joined the others for the bus to the Stampede. Today’s program is what they call “Chuckwagon Races and Grandstand Show”; no rodeo…

And what a show it was…

But first we had a few hours to kill. The Midway was packed, with thousands of attendees and hundreds of fast food joints selling everything from ice cream to tacos to deep-fried pickles. Did I mention that it was hot?

We finally made our way into the grandstands. We had great seats!

We could even see some nice view homes across the way…

Lots of pageantry for the opening ceremonies, introducing lots of titled peoples…

And a band.

We enjoyed singing “Oh Canada” as the Canadian flag literally flew across the stadium…

I love good pageantry!

The first half of the show tonight was various forms of horse racing… This first event is called Chuck Wagon Racing.  The crazy thing is that these teams start the race facing backwards, (facing left), then they maneuver a U-turn, run between obstacle barrels, then the race is on… to the right…

These horses are retired thoroughbred racing horses that have aged out.  They are mostly 8-20 years old.. Very odd, very unusual… And lots of fun!

After 10 heats of Chuck Wagon Races we had “Indian Races”, now called Indigenous People or First Nations races… Young women bareback races… then relay races, also bareback.   

Next came the relay races, also bareback.   

Each team has 3 horses, 3 horse-holders, and one rider.  The race starts with the riders on the ground. Then the whistle blows, they jump onto the 1st horse, and they’re off.

After 1 lap the rider stops, jumps off the 1st horse, then jumps on the 2nd horse…

And hilarity ensues…

They do things differently here in Canada…

After the races they hauled a giant stage backdrop in front of us and the second half of the show began.

This wasn’t half as interesting as the horse races. They was LOUD music, mostly unintelligible. And fire works. Always fireworks. Some gymnastics, some motorcycle riding, more loud music. Anyone heard of the Hunter Brothers? Five farmers from Saskatchewan who formed a fairly popular singing group…

I hadn’t heard of them, either. They were the headliners…

One fairly interesting feature was the drone show. Each single light is a drone, flying around to make these various images (and others…)

The show finally concluded at about 11:15 pm. It’s the first time we’ve been out after dark in three weeks!

We walked our way through the 20,000 people on the midway, found our bus, and returned to the campground at about 12:45 am…

Next day was our last day on the caravan. We enjoyed a little happy hour with our new friends playing ukuleles and guitars and singing along.

Final banquet was at a brewery in old town Cochrane…

One last chance to hang out as a group…

We returned to the Villa. An enjoyable time was had by all…

July 1 – Canada Day!

We left Hinton and headed back through Jasper National Park and the Ice Fields, past Lake Louise, and into Banff National Park and the town of Banff.

Again, we are surrounded by these magnificent mountains…

Our campground was interesting – parallel parking! We did have good electric power, but not much else…

At dinner time we meet in the camp cabin and enjoyed a “champagne” toast to Canada Day!

We all sang “Oh, Canada”, accompanied by a recording by Rob McConnell and the Canadian Brass; for those of us who are not Canadian, we had the words to read and sing…

Some didn’t need to read the words because they knew them well…

We had a fine dinner in the camp cabin. By the way, every time I say that we had a great dinner in the campsite, one team provided all the leadership to make this happen: Stacy and Amy (with un-pronounceable last names) did the planning, shopping, and most of the preparing and serving of all these meals, with various helpers from the group. This was a great treat for all caravaners and led to a lot of good times…

Another note here: Our three oldest grandchildren left home today for a week-long sleep-away camp…

George X. – 8

Ian P. – 10

Roisin M. – 11 (r) and friend…

Tuesday, July 2, we drove into Banff and toured the beautiful Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel…

A National Historic Site of Canada, the Fairmont Banff Springs has been a shining example of Canadian hospitality from its inception. William Cornelius Van Horne, the General Manager of the Canadian Pacific Railway, set about to construct a brilliant grand dame of a hotel that would be one of the world’s most luxurious hotels. As soon as it debuted as the “Banff Springs Hotel” in 1886, it rapidly became one of the top three mountain resorts in North America.

The Banff Springs Hotel briefly shutdown in 1942 as a result of the scarcity in labor wrought by World War II. It would not reopen until the war ended in 1945. Though it took most of the 1950s and 1960s to reclaim its former status as one of the greatest resort getaways in the North Americas, the war had not completely ruined the hotel’s charm. Significant changes to the hotel, which adapted it to the economics of the era, provided it with new life. A pivotal point came in the 1970s, as this was the when the Banff Springs Hotel began to stay open year-round, offering guests a bevy of new winter activities. More renovations and expansions were done a decade later, providing guests with the most cutting-edge accommodations and amenities of the time.

We began our tour in the Photo Gallery, seeing historic photos of the hotel’s beginnings…

We visited the bar…

…which has a secret door in a fake bookcase.

The door leads to a private room…

We saw many beautiful spaces…

…and grad fireplaces…

The main ballroom…

The conservatory…

And another banquet room…

We gathered as a group in the conservatory for a photo…

We had a grand lunch, then we returned to the Villa…

After this lovely day we both were coming down with a cold, so we spent a few days hibernating in the Villa…

We did celebrate Independence Day – 4th of July – with another “champagne” toast and a dinner of hamburgers, hot dogs, and other typical American holiday fare, again prepared by Stacy and Amy…

We returned again to the Villa. An enjoyable time was had by all…

xxx

We had an easy drive from Kootenay Plains, along the same road we had driven to the Ice Fields the day before, then continuing on into Jasper National Park and then to the town of Hinton, AB.

The entire trip gave us views of mountains in all their splendor…

Once in the RV Park, we had a free afternoon to catch up on cell phone service, internet, laundry, and old movies on TV. I even finished up some blog posts.

Happy hours ensued… We turned in early… At 10:00 pm… Way before sunset… Weird place…

Saturday 29 was another free day. More catching up on email and the like. We went to a late lunch (4:00pm) at the best restaurant in town – The Canadian Steakout… Very good!

Some of the Airstreamers gathered for games at the picnic pavilion

We returned to the Villa…

Sunday 30 we traveled to Maligne Canyon and Maligne Lake…

Once again we had marvelous views…

We arrived at the Maligne Canyon Trailhead to find the parking lot full. We headed to the overflow parking lot and walked back…

We found the Maligne River feeding the canyon. It is a “slot canyon”, where the river has carved its way deep into the rock…

Lots of waterfalls and rushing water…

We took thousands more pictures, but you get the idea…

We left the Canyon and continued on…

We passed Medicine Lake along the way.

Medicine Lake is a “Sinking Lake”. Under the lake are gravel-filled “drains” that allow the water to escape underground. During the Winter and Spring the lake fills to 60′-90′ deep. By the end of Summer it will be just scattered shallow ponds…

Just past Medicine Lake we came across a “Bear-Jam”. There may or may not have been a bear, but if one car stops and appears to be looking at something, all other cars stop as well…

We didn’t see anything…

We finally arrived at Maligne Lake, where we enjoyed a lovely lunch on the terrace of a fine cafe…

Maligne Lake has been a favorite summer recreation lake for many generations…

After lunch we boarded a boat for a cruise across the lake to a small island…

Once we left the dock we enjoyed spectacular views of the surrounding mountains…

At Spirit Island we were only allowed to walk along a short, fenced path. The island is considered sacred by the local indigenous peoples of Canada…

We still were able to enjoy the great views…

Back on the boat, we cruised back to the original location…

We had dinner waiting for us at the Chalet…

Dinner was good, and we left to return to the Villa…

But first, we encountered another Bear-Jam. This time we saw a bear! A nice, cute Black Bear…

I opened the skylight in the truck and Lynda stood up through it and took these pictures…

Upon our return to the campground we were treated to a lovely rainbow!

And an enjoyable time was had by all…

Wednesday, June 26, 2024. We had an easy drive from Lake Louise to the middle of nowhere Kootenay Plains. This campground can be best called “primitive”. No electricity, no water, no internet, no cell service…

We had a communal dinner in the little camp cabin – reminiscent of The Parent Trap – that was very nice…

After dinner we had a campfire using real logs – none of that propane silliness… (of course, I dislike campfires of any kind…)

We had our usual bagpipe serenade Always nice…

We returned to the Villa and had a cold night’s sleep…

On Thursday, June 27, we headed out for our adventure in Banff National Park at the Columbia Ice Fields…

And miracles of miracles, we had cell phone service. And our phones started buzzing! The day we had dreaded had arrived…

Back in February, 2015, our son, John, met his service dog Yan for the first time…

Yan has been “under the weather” for about two months…

So today John made the heart-wrenching decision to let him go… John said, “He was trying so hard, but he had nothing left…”

He was a good dog…

(Tearful interlude here…)

But we had a glacier we had to see…

This glacier was formed when ice covered the entire area of North America. The snow kept falling and eventually got so thick and heavy that it compressed into ice. The original icepack was as tall as these adjacent mountains…

Over thousands of years the ice has been slowly melting, filling adjacent rivers and lakes. This glacier is melting and sliding down down the hill at the rate of a few inches per year…

If you look carefully at the picture below you can see a tiny bus on the ice with several people walking around… That bus is about 20′ tall and 40′ long…

The “bus” ride to the glacier travels down a 30% grade – like a very slow, bumpy roller coaster…

Here you see some hikers on the glacier…

This is the “bus” we arrived in… Those tires are five feet diameter!

So we all exited the bus and walked on the ice. This ice is only 10% air. Normal freezer ice is 50% air. This ice resembles the ice you might get in your cocktail in a really fancy restaurant…

So we walked on the glacier… There is not much to do except avoid falling down…

I wasn’t realty grumpy, but my feet were cold… Rainbow sandals don’t do well on a glacier…!

Lynda is barely taller than the tires…

We returned to the Visitors Center and had lunch, then we headed out to the Skywalk… A great tourist attraction…

This walkway is cantilevered out over the canyon and river below. And the floor is glass!

So you walk out onto this glass floor 800′ above the rocks and look for mountain goats. We found a few…

I loved the architecture of the Skywalk, particularly the loose rock retaining walls…

After the Skywalk we headed back to our primitive campsite…

We had dinner in the capm cabin in the pouring rain. No campfire tonight…

We returned to the Villa. An enjoyable time was had by all…

At 9:30am on Sunday, 6/23/2024, we left Fairmont Hot Springs and headed to Lake Louise within the Banff National Park. We are part of the “Advance Team”, going ahead of the group, to see to it that all is in order at the next campground.

Heading north we drove through more spectacular mountains…

There are lots of these wildlife crossings along the Trans-Canada highway…

After setting up in our campground (no internet, no cell service…) we joined a few other Airstreamers for dinner at the Truffle Pigs in Field, AB. It was highly recommended for its creative and excellent food…

The Truffle Pigs did not disappoint! Two of the ladies who never eaten duck before ordered the Duck Confit. The licked their plates clean (figuratively).

On the drive back to the campground we saw a beautiful rainbow!

Next morning, Monday 24, we had a joint breakfast at the Lake Louise Ski Area. We also heard another talk all about bears…

After breakfast and the bear talk we headed out towards the gondola…

It was almost like Disneyland!

We had this spectacular view across the valley to the mountains beyond…

As we went higher, and as I zoomed in the camera we saw the prize: Lake Louise in all its turquoise glory…!

On the shore of Lake Louise is the Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise, a 100 year old hotel…

At the top of the gondola ride we enjoyed the view…

It’s cold up here! So we headed back down.

Now that we knew what Lake Louise and the Chateau looked like, we couldn’t wait to visit. We drove up the narrow roads. Construction was everywhere, with surly construction workers telling us where to go and what to do. We finally, after many delays arrived…

What a difference! The hotel was helpful and gracious, offering to park my giant truck in their tiny lot. We were welcomed and greeted by many staff members. I think one even offered to carry us to our restaurant reservation…!

As we waited at the bar we enjoyed a peek of the lake…

We were promptly seated and we enjoyed a delightful lunch and a fine bottle of chilled Rose’ wine…

After lunch we were able to walk out to the lake. It is, of course, fed by glacier run-off. Its turquoise color is caused by the “rock flour” carried into the lake by the glacier melting…

Yes, people are canoeing on the frigid lake.

Some people are even crazier…

After our great time at the Chateau we headed back to the campground…

We walked about the campground a bit…

Tuesday 25 was a quiet day of catching up and borrowing some Starlink internet so we could catch up with the world. Tomorrow we have two nights of dry camping – no power, no water, no internet, no cell service…

Dinner tonight was a group event at a old timey restored train station…

A lovely dinner ensued. We returned to the campground. An enjoyable time was had by all..

The Airstreams left the campground in Drumheller in groups of twos and threes (and the occasional one…) as we headed south. Our first destination today is the Bar U Ranch, just south of Longview, AB. We arrived and parked in a large grass field. No fancy RV park tonight!

Founded in 1882 as the Northwest Cattle Company, the Bar U Ranch was one of the first and most enduring of the large corporate ranches established in southern Alberta.

Three key personalities guided the ranch through seven decades of change up to 1950: Fred Stimson set the foundation and infrastructure for the Bar U Ranch, which under George Lane achieved international repute as a center of breeding excellence for cattle and purebred Percheron horses. Patrick Burns and his company modernized the ranch by replacing horses with tractors and streamlined operations which took the Bar U though the depression and World War II.

The Bar U Ranch has one of the largest collections of original ranch buildings in Canada. Treasures include the blacksmith shop, harness repair shop, roundup camp and saddlehorse barn. Also on display are the cookhouse and the Percheron horse barns.

We had a guided tour through the various buildings, learning about life on the ranch 100 years ago.

We gathered for dinner in the Visitors Center. We heard a speaker talk about the history of Alberta, homesteading, and the various ways the people of early Alberta worked to maintain their identity despite ranchers coming in from the south (USA) and pioneers coming in from the east via the railroad. We also had a lovely catered dinner with fresh berry pies for dessert…

On the morning of Friday, June 21, we gathered for morning coffee and a drivers’ meeting…

After our meeting we departed for the Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump. This is an historical site commemorating the methods the Blackfoot people originally hunted Buffalo.

In the fall, the bands (small communities of the Blackfoot) would gradually shift to their wintering areas and prepare the bison jumps and pounds. Several bands might join together at particularly good sites, such as Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump. As the bison moved into the area, drawn by water and richer forage than the burned-dry summer grasses, the bands would prepare by building rock cairns, brush barricades, and the like,. When the time was right, they would herd the bison into a stampede. As the path grew narrower the bison approached the steep cliff, tumbling over to their death on the rocks below. This was the traditional method of hunting bison before the introduction of horses and guns.

The people would prepare dry meat and pemmican for the winter. Such dry food stores were used as emergency supplies for those times when the bison were not near. At the end of the fall, the Blackfoot would move to their winter camp locales.

Today the cliff in only about 35 feet high. Thousands of years ago it would have been more than 70 feet tall…

The visitor center now sits on one area of the cliffs… Inside the visitor center they show a reproduction of buffalo falling on the cliff….

Seen from below…

And seen from the top…

There was an excellent short movie to watch. It showed how the people herded and eventually stampeded the buffalo over the cliff… Any buffalo that survived the fall was killed, lest they escape and go back and tell the other buffalo what went on…

In the 1880s the buffalo were exterminated by over hunting, and the Blackfoot could no longer live their traditional lifestyle.

The Airstreams left again, this time heading west into British Columbia, via the Crowsnest Highway, the lowest highway crossing the Continental Divide, at about 5,100 feet.

We arrived at Fairmont Hot Springs. Happy Hours ensued.

On Saturday, June 22, we had a free day to catch up on our lives and enjoy the recreational opportunities in the area.

We, of course, chose to enjoy the hot mineral water pools… These are not chlorinated swimming pools. This is hot mineral water piped in from the natural springs. Every night they drain the pools into the local creek, and fresh mineral water is used to fill the pools again.

In the evening we gathered for another Drivers Meeting, then we enjoyed a “home cooked” meal, prepared by Stacy and Amy, with help from many others…

To celebrate our 50th wedding anniversary we were serenaded by our in-house bag-piper…

We returned to the Villa. An enjoyable time was had by all…

We headed out from Glacier early Monday morning. Snow is expected, and we want to get far down the road before it hits…

Soon we were at the border… All went well, with little waiting.

Alberta is very much an open, rangeland area…

We arrived in Drumheller, AB. This is a town with a history of cattle, mining, and Dinosaurs…

Many of the caravaners had already arrived. The Caravan actually starts tomorrow, so we are just one day early.

We started off on the right foot by having a Happy Hour with all the Airstreamers.

We returned to the Villa…

Tuesday, June 18, is the official first day of the caravan. We received our “Travel Guide”, a 3-ring binder full of information about everything we will be doing. We will see a dinosaur museum, an historic ranch (one of the country’s largest in its heyday), a “Buffalo Jump”, a hot springs resort, Lake Louise, Kootenay Plains, Jasper National Park, Banff National Park, and the Calgary Stampede. (More on the Stampede later…)

The last of the caravaners arrived this day.

We spent the day greeting others, walking along the adjacent river, and getting ready for our Welcome Meeting this evening.

On Wednesday, June 19, we drove to the local dinosaur museum. We toured the museum until all the lights went out… Oops!

Since we had planned to eat lunch in the museum cafe, we instead drove back to the Airstreams and had lunch on our own. Then we drove back to the museum and gathered for our guided walk to see the “Badlands”

They look pretty bad to me…

The Badlands were formed by the giant inland sea freezing during the ice age. As the ice melted, glaciers scraped all the loose sediment away leaving these hills and valleys. Since the dinosaurs also died out during this period, these hills are full of dinosaur bones…

It was very interesting. We could see “hoodoos” forming, and we could see dinosaur bones in the sandstone beneath our feet…

That evening we had a dinner at a local landmark, the Last Chance Saloon.

Food was good and all the Airstreamers appeared to enjoy themselves.

And an enjoyable time was had by all..