October 25 & 26

Stayed in a lovely new Best Western in Shelby that even had my name on a welcome board!

John and Diane left for home after breakfast and I stayed at the hotel until noon when they drove me to the train station.   Walked the downtown and had lunch.   Then it was wait until the train arrived.  It was 1.5 hours late. 

Once I arrived in Portland I walked to Voodoo Donuts to take a sampling home. 

A personal welcome to the Best Western in Shelby

October 24 - Shelby Mt

Pretty much a day of driving to Shelby, Montana.  

My train is tomorrow at 5:17 and I can stay at this Best Western until it's time to go to the train station and they'll drive me there.

We did the obligatory stop at the Milk River Visitor Center.   We are in dinosaur territory today so they are everywhere.

October 23

Final day in High River.

Did laundry then spent the rest of the day helping John and Diane with various computer and cell phone issues.  I think all is working well now.

We did take a walk over to the Highwood Golf & Country Club for lunch and later had dinner at my hotel.

Diane tools around very well on her scooter

October 22

Gerald's last day today as his flight back home to Halifax is this evening.

So, it was a driving day.  First to the Okotoks Erratic.

Up close to the Erratic

The walkway to the Erratic

Then we went back to the Bragg Creek area and this time there was no snow and the temperature was lovely.  We found that they were having a scarecrow festival and couldn't resist a good laugh at these two.

The Trump scarecrow

The Hilary scarecrow

The text on the Hilary scarecrow

Another lovely day.

October 21

I  didn't feel well yesterday so stayed in bed most of the day but felt much better by the end of the afternoon so we all had a lovely dinner.  John and Gerald went to play pool in the afternoon.

Chinook Arch over High River last night

Today was a gorgeous day!  We went to Nanton to see the Bomber Command Museum.

 

John in the flight simulator

Off one of the planes showing bombs dropped by Ronnie Jenkins

The Lancaster

Then we were off to Vulcan.  They've had a busy year with the 50th anniversary of Star Trek!

Vulcan Visitor Center

Star Ship

October 19

Wonderful temperature today, blue skies and sunshine!  We drove into south Calgary and then took the train into downtown.

What a lovely city center!  We only picked one thing to go towards and that was the +15 Skywalk.  This skywalk is 15 feet above the street and links about 10 miles of the downtown so you can go a long ways without having to step outside if you don't want to.  It's the most extensive pedestrian network of its kind in the world.

Downtown pedestrian walkway

One of many entrances to +15 Skywalk

Cleaning and polishing the Famous 5 statues.  Here are three.

These five Albertan women were drawn together by the tides of history and a shared idealism. Each was a true leader in her own right: one a police magistrate, another a legal expert who founded the National Council for Women, and three served as Members of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta. And they did all this before they were even fully defined as "persons" under Canadian and British law.

Calgary Tower

Artwork on the street

City Hall is being renovated and will reopen in 2020.

October 18

Today was the day to watch curling and then snooker.  Click on the sentence below to watch the four games we watched.

Watching the curling this morning

A nice dinner at John and Diane's brought a great end to the day.

Tomorrow we will take the train into Calgary and see some of the downtown.

October 17

Quiet day today.   Of course we struck out! 

We had planned to go to two museums and a farm only to find all three closed as they have changed to winter hours.  Bummer!   So basically we had a drive.

Pretty cold today with fog and clouds so after our drive we just all felt like a nap.  The afternoon was spent watching YouTube.

Got a kick out of this sign in the laundromat

Outside the Bomber Museum (which was closed today)

At the closed Bomber Museum grounds

October 16

After taking care of laundry this morning, Gerald and I picked up John for lunch at the Highwood Golf & Country Club.

We then went to two small local museums and did a little walk around downtown.  It was blowing quite strong so felt cold even though the temperature was high.

Call of the West Museum (High River Agricultural Society)

Museum of the Highwood (just got a big kick out of this exhibit)

Street mural in downtown High River

Chainsaw carving of 3 wolves in downtown High River

What we saw around the corner after dropping John off at home (there were actually two deer in the yard)

October 15

We're back in High River.

Nice drive today even though we started off with clouds and some rain. No snow on Crowsnest Pass (whew!) so a pleasant crossing.

We took a slightly different route coming back to Alberta and made a couple of stops.  The whole drive was only a couple of hours so we took it pretty easy.

The most interesting spot was Pincher Creek where they had several silhouettes in the fields.

RCMP silhouettes

Indian village silhouettes

Cowhand herding cattle silhouettes

October 14 - Fernie BC

Onward this morning to Kimberley where we lived in the early 1950's and where my brother Gerald was born.  He hasn't been back since he was 2 years old!

John and Gerald in front of the house we lived in

On the road to Kimberley

One of the buildings in the square in Kimberley where we stopped for lunch

The Rockies on our way to Fernie

So we've settled in at a hotel in Fernie and will probably get back to High River tomorrow.

October 13 - Creston BC

Not a fun drive today.  Major storm hit the west coast and although we were on the edge of it, still lots of fog, rain and snow.

Another storm coming in tonight but our last mountain pass tomorrow should not be anywhere as bad as today's was.

Driving around Nelson was beautiful, all the fall colors in full bloom.  Unfortunately we didn't stop to take any photos, just one after lunch.

A very interesting lunch at this place of garlic

At the end of the afternoon, a lovely room in Creston BC

October 12 - Grand Forks BC

Over hill and dale...and through more Rocky Mountains.  We headed to Castlegar BC and a different time zone to see the street sculptures.

Diane, Gerald and John

I think this owl was spectacular; the photo doesn't do it justice

Wonderful frog on the side of a building

Fish on a pedestal

We then took a drive along the Columbia River to the Arrow Lakes Generating Station.

Arrow Lakes Generating Station

We thought we would go to Christina Lake to spend the night but didn't find anywhere obvious to stay so decided to go just a little farther to Grand Forks.

Christina Lake BC

October 11 - Cranbrook BC

Pretty quiet day yesterday, Thanksgiving, and we didn't do a lot.  Had a lovely dinner at John & Jody's house; altogether there were 17 of us for dinner, including Dave.

The Forbes clan minus Dave who wasn't there yet

After breakfast this morning we started off on our trek to British Columbia over part of the Rocky Mountains.

Driving through Crowsnest Pass

Driving through Crowsnest Pass

World's largest truck in Sparwood BC

On the other side of the mountains