Day 15: Say it five times fast!

The beautiful vastness of the plains

July 20:  Two weeks ago today we left.  It feels a lot longer!

Man, I love the drive alongside the mountains!  Even though they weren’t the tallest or craggiest, it’s just so beautiful.  All the same, to change up the trip back along the same route through the Crowsnest Pass, we stopped at the Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump Interpretive Centre west of Lethbridge.  Buffalo jumps, in case the term is unfamiliar to you, is where the Blackfoot herded buffalo over a cliff in order to have a large kill in a relatively short time.  The name of this one does not refer to buffalo heads being smashed in but rather to a rather thoughtless brave deciding it would be neat to watch them come over from the bottom (perhaps the first winner of a Darwin Award).

The concept of a buffalo jump seems kind of cruel in one way but when you consider the amount of use the natives made of all parts of the bison and that it was for survival, it makes a lot of sense.  The centre was very well done with a lot of information about the Blackfoot and the archaeology of digging up an area that’s been used for buffalo jumps for 11,000 years.  Quite fascinating.

As our trip tomorrow is the Rocky Mountain parks (our second really LONG day!) we are staying in Airdrie, just outside of Calgary, tonight.  We got a taste of rush hour on the major routes outside a western major city:  so wonderful anywhere you go.  But we got in another evening swim.

I have to tip my hat to the large number of cyclists we have encountered on this trip!  And not just on the nice, flat Prairies; there were more in the beautiful hills of Lake Superior and in the foothills of the Rockies.  What kind of leg muscles do you have to have to make it up the Rockies?!  Huge amounts of respect, guys.

Also worthy of note:  we were driving around after supper this evening when we were suddenly slapped in the face with the overwhelming stench of smoke.  And there were huge clouds in the sky, some definitely vapour but some have to have been smoke.  It is so sad -- and so difficult for those with breathing issues.

Motel 6, Airdrie.  Very clean but small and stark. Dinner at Original Joe’s.

From the car window:  not too hard to take

This language makes Spanish look like a breeze!(wrist band entry)