Medicine Hat Lodge

We had spent a bitterly cold night in the car at a campsite in the town of Swift Current, where we were driven to the point of insanity by the cold. The harsh cold of the Canadian winter started to rear its ugly head, with snow and sharp biting wind whipping up around our tiny tent. We were even joined by a ginger cat in our car, the poor bugger begged for salvation from the cold, we gladly let him in, and were ...

... wir die Badlands, dass sind Sandsteinformationen, genauer besichtigen. Es hätte einen kleinen Wanderweg gegeben. Aber nachdem die Moskitos über Jan hergefallen sind, und selbst das Antibrumm nichts genutzt hat, haben wir beschlossen, weiterzufahren. Die Fotos haben wir somit aus der ‚sicheren' Ferne gemacht.

... easy part through the plains. It's funny to see the sky line change so drastically as soon as you leave Calgary. Also I can't understand for the life of me why they do this, but the main (and only highway to go across Canada) goes through major cities. And I mean goes through! You from going 110 kmh (80 mph) to stopping at a red light. It's crazy! Oh those crazy Canadians! Off to get a good ...

So we continued on to Medicine Hat, where Roxanne's mother lived. For whatever reason, one I obviously can't remember, I have always called her Mrs. Kay. We spent a lot of time there, visiting water slides and other things. And then we took off once more.

... along the east shore of Kootenay Lake which is described as the Rockies version of the Norwegian Fjordes. It is a motorcylists dream road with 270 curves in 90 kilometers. We saw one guy lying along side the highway being attended to by an ambulance - his pants were ripped and he looked like he had serious road rash. Kimberley - Beautiful log-condo boom town, alpine skiing resorts and historic downtown Nordic theme buildings on the Platzl ...

Although it had been a long and tiring day before it was not a restful night for some. We were quite close to the Trans Canada Railway line and apparently (according to Chrissy), there were noisy night trains at 0100, 0200, 0400 and 0500. This might not be too bad, but these trains tend to be nearly 1km long and take quite a while to pass. We had a early start and where greeted with a sunny but windy ...

... of Grain Elevators and nodding Oil Pumps. We stopped for Morning Coffee at a small Native American Indian museum, which was really interesting and whilst there managed to sneak on to their WiFi and catch up on emails. It was there that we found out about Zoom Airlines going bust - a bit if a nuisance as we had booked on them to travel back to UK. At lunch we stopped beside rolling fields and whilst Chrissy prepared a bite ...

... Best Western. Nice. Once we were settled we walked across the parking lot to Tumbleweed's Restaurant for some Alberta Beef. Our steaks were melt-in-your mouth good! The table behind us held 3 guys (in leather baseball caps/vests -biker fashions) and biker-chick-look-alikes. Just as we were finishing our meal, one of the guys got up and went into the corner where a piano stood. He opened it up, sat down ...

... into Alberta and the town of Medicine Hat. I pester Mario into going to a grocery in search of Alberta beef, the best in Canada, possibly the world. We bought two tasty steaks and some corn-on-the-cob for supper and search for a campground. What a find! In the middle of the prairies we find Cavan Lake campground, a self-serve place where you fill out your info on ...