Vacation 2013 – Part 18 – Just the four of us!

So, the day finally arrived, today after getting up and packing the RV, we went to Kyla’s place and dropped her off. We said our goodbyes and then Dale, Megan, Jenna and I hit the road to start our voyage home. I will say I struggled with the process. I am very proud of Kyla and I know she is ready to be on her own but, it was still tough to drive away. After seeing some text from her it sounds like she had a pretty good day. Bella the Dog seems to have some issues, she knows we left Kyla and I don’t believe she is happy about it. Not having Kyla around gives me a few problems; one is that she quite often does my text editing (She is doing Education with History, social studies and english so, her role may even grow in the future). Secondly, quite often when I am trying to decided between two similar images Kyla provides her thoughts on which one I should use. She sees a scene very differently than I do and having her eye look at an image is often helpful. Tonight, I had just that problem and Kyla isn’t here for me to ask for an opinion. Even Dale mentioned how if Kyla was here she could help. I guess I will get use to that or I will keep all similar images for Kyla to review at Christmas time, lol. Now back to our travels. We left Lethbridge and headed to Blairmore. Blairmore is along the Crowsnest Pass in Southwestern Alberta. It was a beautiful drive and one we haven’t done before. It was the first time in seven years that I could tell the wind was having an effect on our RV hauling, it was crazy windy today. It was a short day of driving, we left around 12:15 pm and arrived at our campground around 2:30 pm. We had a quick-lunch and rested before going out exploring. We headed west into British Columbia (hey ,we went to Montana on a whim so BC was nothing, lol) and after a few kilometres headed back to the east through Coleman, Blairmore and stopping in Bellevue. From Bellevue we headed back to our RV site in Blairmore. We took several side trips along the way and a few images were created. There are lots of interesting historical facts about this area. The first Communist Town Council was elected in Blairmore, the area was a big rum-running area during prohibition, in 1903 the tip of Turtle Mountain (about a kilometre wide) broke off and covered the town of Frank (The Frank Slide), the last train robbery in Canada happened here in 1920, the Hillcrest Mine disaster happened here in 1914, there have been several floods and forest fires, Alberta’s first female Mayor was elected in Bellevue in 1963, Disney shot “The Journey of Natty Gann” here in 1985 and the best thing of all for you KFC lovers is that the gravy recipe for KFC Chicken was developed here. This is an area we will visit again, it is beautiful. We have seen a couple of additional treats the last two nights. Last night we watched a Prairie Hawk or Falcon (you bird people will know which) fly off with a snake and tonight, as I write this, CP Rail just passed by (literally 40 metres from our RV) with the longest train I have ever seen (the RV moves as it goes by). We are having a great trip. Tomorrow we start heading north again but, for now here is some of what we saw today. Enjoy, thanks for checking in and as always Happy Shooting.

 

The view from the shore of Chinook Lake.

 

The view from our RV site in Lost Lemon RV Park, Blairmore.

 

Along the Crowsnest River in Blairmore.

 

Crowsnest River at the entrance to Lost Lemon.

 

My Furry Friend in Chinook Lake Provincial Park, Alberta.