Finally, we drove under sunny blue skies as we headed west into Alberta and Mountain Time. The prairies gave way to some gently rolling hills. It is still definitely farm and ranching country. We passed 2 very long trains with nothing but grain cars.
Farming on the prairie
While gassing up this morning in Saskatchewan, Peggy spoke to a man with a daughter in her early teens. They’re heading to a family reunion in British Columbia. She’s taking pictures of license plates from different locations and asked to take a picture of ours. It reminded Peggy of traveling when the kids were young. Getting gas at times has been a little frustrating. Sometimes you need to bring your credit card into the cashier before starting to pump and again then when finished pumping; some pumps request a maximum dollar amount and then it only charges the actual dollar amount you use! It’s always interesting getting used to different ways of doing things. Also, the pumps don’t always zero out so you have to go inside and have someone fix the problem.
Rather than driving 10+ hours to Canmore, Alberta, we decided to break it up into 2 shorter days and do some sightseeing in Medicine Hat, Alberta. With a population of approximately 65,000 in 2021, it is bigger than we expected. With only 1 afternoon to explore the city, we decided on 3 stops. First up was the Saamis Tepee, the world’s largest teepee. It was built for the 1988 Calgary Olympics in honor of Canada’s Plains Indians. It is constructed of concrete and steel. It is approximately 200 ft tall (61 meters) and 160 ft in diameter (49 meters). There are 10 circles on the floor of the teepee with info about the Plains tribes’ cultures. From there we went to the Medalta, an industrial heritage museum, in the Historic Clay District. We toured the Old Factory which provided an in depth look at beehive kilns and the pottery making that occurred there from 1912 until 1950s. The process was extremely labor intensive. The exhibit was fascinating and well worth the stop.
Our last stop of the day was the Medicine Hat Brewing Company where we had an early dinner and enjoyed adult beverages – a locally brewed IPA for Wayne and a white wine for Peggy. We are now comfortably settled into a motel for the night. We are hopeful that the weather gods will smile on us and we will be able to camp in the Canmore town campground that we so enjoyed in 2005.
Pottery museum
Pottery collection
Inside factory
Inside factory
Kilns for baking pottery