2016 July Alberta 2

First day in Calgary.  Went downtown to City Centre before the Stampede show that day.  All over this area of downtown, different stations were cooking pancakes with bacon cooked into them.  It was surprisingly good.  You could have as many as you liked. 

Views of downtown Calgary.

Above, a local chef is doing a cooking show live in Calgary City Centre.

Our first day tickets to the Calgary Stampede.  This is the biggest rodeo in Canada and one of the highest payouts in North America.  Riders come from all over the world.  One of the riders was from Brazil.

At a separate arena, they had all sorts of demonstrations going on. This young rancher was learning how to stick is arm up the butt of this cow and feel for something that was not right.  The cute young lady was telling him what to feel for.

Above was a competition with teams of two of these huge horses pulling weight.  They started with 6000 pounds.  There were about ten teams competing.

Then the show began.  We attended 3 shows, Saturday afternoon was a preliminary competition to limit the final competition in each category to four riders.  Each event that we went to started off with this type of entertainment.

2016 July Alberta 1

Antelope in Montana before heading into Alberta.  Our tour group started in Great Falls, Montana.  First stop was Hill Spring just south of Fort MacLeod in Southern Alberta.  Below is a canola field with Glacier Park in the far distance.  Canola gets it's name from Canada Oil.   Love these yellow fields.

View from our campground below right, also with Glacier Park in the far distance.

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This museum has the largest collection of horse-drawn carriages

in North America.

Remington Carriage House in Cardston, Alberta (south of Calgary).  To the right is the shop where they reconstruct carriages.  Below is a carriage they had just finished.  This shop completely rebuilt the wheels and suspension system, and repainted the body.  Takes a lot of training to learn how to refurbish these original carriages.

Below are archaeologist at a dig just West of Fort MacLeod.  This area is called "Head-Smashed in Buffalo Jump".  They have discovered arifacts from Indian camps that go back 6000 years.  Different Indian tribes would camp at this location.  They learned how to stampede the Buffalo over the cliff.  This ritual started long before they had horses or guns.  They managed to get enough meat to sustain them for many months.

There is a very nice museum displaying early Indian tribe life in this area.  Below is the cliff that was used to stampede the buffalo over.  The archeological dig was at the base of this cliff.

Area where thousands of Indians would camp during short periods while they were hunting the buffalo.

Depiction of the buffalo stampede.  Indians used every part of the buffalo.  Nothing went to waste.

Our tour guide at the museum was from the local Blackfoot nation.

Fort MacLeod, Alberta.  Mid 1800's RMCP (Royal Mounted Canadian Police) fort.  This fort was established to control the whiskey traders that were not such nice people.

These college age kids came from all over Canada to work during the summer here.  This was called a Musical Ride, formations done to music.

2016 July Montana 2

Below the parking lot at Logans Pass is full.  Over 2 million visitors each year.  I think they were all there they day we were there.  They post at both the East and West entrances to the Park when this parking lot is full, but it doesn't keep the crowds from trying anyway.

Below are 2 Jack Russell's in this coach barking at the intruders.

These very cool buses carry tourists all over the Park for a nice fee of course.  Our bus driver opened up the hood to show us the original tag from 1936 when the buses were built by the White Motor Company.  They ran non-stop from 1936 to the late 1900's in Glacier Park.  Badly needing to be rebuilt, Ford Motor Company completely rebuilt them using the original bodies costing Ford over 6 million dollars.  It's like a convertible top that can be rolled back easily when weather permits.  Weather was not cooperating the day we rode on them.

View out the top of our bus.  Sure glad we weren't trying to drive our coach through these rocks.  The main road through Glacier Park is called "Going to the Sun".   Any vehicle over 25 feet is not allowed, but occasionally someone driving an RV gets through.  They are fined heavily though when caught.  Our driver was telling us about a 5th wheel that was driving through and badly damaged by these rocks.

Really nice Lake McDonald lodge on the west side of the park.  Our bus stopped for lunch here.

"Going to the Sun"  road on right. 

We took a boat tour on Lake St. Mary.  Cliff is talking with our very cute boat driver,  Sarah from California majoring in Geography.  I don't get a Geography major, but she was so cute I'll let her major in what ever she wants.  And she was an excellent boat driver.

These Amish came from Indiana by train to visit the Park.  They had to get up very early to catch the park transportation from the West side of the Park and get to the boat ride by 10:00 on the East side.

We just stopped at a viewing area of Two Medicine Lake and noticed these crosses down the hill from us.  So we had to walk out to this point to see them.  They were markers for Blackfeet people.

Two Medicine Lake below.