Before I got going I had breakfast at a little diner in town. It was nice and fairly inexpensive. As I was leaving, I noticed that there was a Super 8 Motel on the edge of town. I decided to stop and see if there was any free internet. There was and I was able to at least catch up on my e-mail and post a couple of blogs. I ended up being on the computer for a couple hours since it had been a while since I was online.
I left town and headed towards Calgary. Just out of town was a historical marker. I thought it was very interesting. It was a Buffalo Rubbing Rock. For hundreds of years it was used by the buffalo as a rubbing stone to remove excess winter hair and to relieve the occasional itch. The buffalo left parts of the rock highly polished from their rubbing and wore a deep trench around their sides. When settlers first came into the area, buffalo hair could still be seen wedged in small cracks in the surface of the stone.
A buffal rubbing rock
About an hour and a half out of town I passed into Alberta. Point number 86 in my ABC’s of Touring contest.
Welcome to Alberta!
My next stop was Hanna. It’s population is only 5,000 people. Even though this is a town in the middle of nowhere, this is the home town of Nickelback for all you rockers out there. Also they had another Super 8 so I was able to check my e-mail again.
Hanna, AB, home town of Nickelback
Even though there was still nothing but farms, the tone of the farms started to change. When I was in Manatoba and Saskatchewan there was nothing but farms with crops. Now that I was starting to get farther west, the farms started to change to more grazing than crops which meant I started to see cow after cow after cow. I guess this is at least some type of change.
On the way to Drumheller, I saw a sign that said, “Scenic route to Drumheller”, so I figured that I was going that way anyway, why not take the scenic route. It couldn’t be any more boring than the hundreds of miles of farms that I had been passing on the way so far.
How different it was! I went through hills and saw trees. It was a much nicer ride than what I was used to. I'm glad I decided to take the "scenic" route.
The "scenic" route
I even saw two huge ten-point bucks on the side of the road. When I stopped to take a picture, they ran back from the road. Oh, well. It was at least nice seeing them up close for a while. They had huge racks, but they were still covered in velvet.
When I got to Drumheller, it was starting to get late so I decided that I was going to stay here. I talked to a guy at the gas station and he told me about a campground out of town a little ways that was right by a ferry that was only $10 a night. This sounded good to me so I went out there and it turned out to be a nice campground with only a few other people there. They even provided free firewood. I decided that since I haven’t had a camp fire since I started the trip, this would be the night that I would have one.
My camp side in Drumheller, AB
I sat by the camp fire and caught up on my blogs and then went to bed about 11:15.
Tomorrow, I’ll be in Calgary, but I think I’ll head over to Banff National Park and Check that out first since Kais is still in Montreal and won’t be back until the end of the week.
