A last look at the mountains, for this trip

Lots of mountains and windmills

We had to start earlier than we wanted to this morning, as we needed to be out of the Home Hardware lot by 8am. Usually this wouldn't be a problem, but we both slept well and found it hard to get up this morning. Nice to have that problem!

Fyi, the welcome from Home Hardware to stay in their lot overnight is local to this store. The stores are all privately owned, and this kind of decision is up to the store manager. I did go in this morning to check this out, and thank them for the stay.

Our drive today started under mostly-sunny skies, a good start.

Usually some construction to deal with, this time of year

We stopped at the Frank Slide memorial. In 1903 the side of a mountain came down on a town of about 600 people:

Some seventy people were known to have died. Most are still buried here.

The massive debris covered the road that was here at the time.

Heading down through Pincher Creek:

Cowboy and horse "hard" at work. Yes, well-done silhouettes.

Some mural art in downtown Pincher Creek

More murals, soldiers returning from war

More mountain vistas as we moved on from Pincher Creek towards Waterton:

Anytime we are in the Waterton Park area, we take the drive through the Bison Paddock loop, just north of Waterton. Today was no exception:

The usually-large pond at the entrance was almost dried right up

No bison visible yet, but always a pretty drive

Ah, there is the bull herd, lying down in a draw

It can be hard to see them from a distance

We've found it normal to just see the bulls here this time of year. The cows are segregated away from the public while birthing their calves.

One last look at the mountains receding in the rear-view mirror

 

The main reason we headed on this route today was to visit the Remington Carriage museum in Cardston AB. If you're interested in carriage history this is the place to be. There's lots of history here about the transition to newfangled automobiles from the horse and buggy days. A lot of similarities to today's transition to electric cars:

Not just carriages on display

Some very realistic displays

Harness-making was a huge industry around the early 1900's

Their in-house shop can repair items or even craft replicas as needed

Memorial to Don Remington, the founder of the museum

 

Tonight we're camped in an actual campground, Writing-On-Stone provincial park. We're here for 2 nights, so will have pictures of this tomorrow. Here's a sampling from today:

  

Some of the hoodoos that are found in the park

There's a bit of beach on the Milk River, a popular canoeing route

The magpies like this area too