Go West! –High River Vacation 2008

What a wonderful vacation we had this year. It’s good to be home, but was so hard going back to work. The weather in Alberta was what summer should have been here - warm, dry and sunny. We had a miserably wet summer here. Anyways, here are some of the highlights from the vacation.

Bar U Ranch
The Bar U Ranch National Historic Site is located in Longview, Alberta by Pekisko Creek. We had a nice carriage ride around the site, visited the saddlery, cookhouse, post office, and blacksmith buildings (http://www.pc.gc.ca/lhn-nhs/ab/baru/index_E.asp). We had coffee and tea made for us around a campfire where the chuck wagon was and fresh out of the oven gingerbread cookies in the cookhouse. It turned out that the blacksmith knows my father-in-law and made us a souvenir on that authentic 1800’s forge to take home – what an honour! The plains of Alberta are beautiful. I love the green open land and clear blue sky.

Calgary Zoo
Although it’s not as big or elaborate as the Toronto and Granby zoos, there’s still plenty of animals, fun and interesting stuff for the kids (http://www.calgaryzoo.org/).

Drumheller
We are dinosaur nuts so for us, this is one of the coolest places on earth! In my own opinion, their dinosaur museum is the best museum, period, that I have ever been to. After our museum visit, we took one of the walking trails through the Bad Lands. They are incredibly beautiful (http://www.dinosaurvalley.com/).

Nanton
In this small town not far from High River, there’s the Nanton Lancaster Air Museum and an incredible train shop devoted to Thomas the Train. At the back of the shop, they have an incredible garden railway (http://www.town.nanton.ab.ca/).