Alberta road trip, Post 5: Kananaskis to Red Deer

On Thursday, our only plan was to reach Red Deer by 5 or 6pm. There, we had arranged to stay 3 nights with my grade 1 teacher, Linda. She came to Australia on a 1-year teacher exchange in 1990, and has stayed in contact with my family and I ever since - including visiting us in Dalby when I was 13. So, this was to be a very exciting day, but I'll start at the beginning...

After moving out of our tipi, we drove into Kananaskis Village for breakfast. Check out the photo below of the "Warning: Bear in Area" signs we saw on the way! After this, we still had a few hours to fill in, so we stopped in at an activity ranch we came across, where they had a restaurant, shop, trail rides, teepee, busload of tourists, etc.





In the shop there, we found a book about hikes to do in the local area, so we decided to do a short one. This ended up to be quite an anti-climax, as the walk was about 50m and the beautiful pond we'd hoped to find looked more like an Aussie dam during a drought! But I did get to see some cute little red flowers up close, having zoomed past thousands of them since entering Alberta. (Anyone know what they are? I thought they were wild roses since Alberta is "Wild Rose Country", but just discovered they aren't.)





A little later, we stopped in at a university forestry research centre and did their Forest Ecology Loop walk. This was a very pleasant meander during which we didn't see a single other person. But we did see squirrels, chipmunks, and a variety of colourful flowers. We also tried to remember to make lots of noise (as advised) to warn bears of our approach!







In the afternoon, we stopped in Calgary to quench our thirst at A&W (a burger chain), where I had my very first A&W Root Beer Float, an essential Canadian experience. "Root beer" is the softdrink we call "sars" in Australia. So mine had a big chunk of vanilla ice cream in it. Very yummy! Our car had no air conditioning and the weather during this trip was around 30 degrees, so after this refreshing break we felt able to continue. :)



This is when the carefully laid plans of Byrds and men started to go astray. As we left Calgary for the final 1.5 hours to Red Deer, our [previously] trusty Focus started complaining mightily. In fact, it spluttered and conked, demanded that Ben push it to the edge of the highway, and then insisted that we sit there for a while so it could enjoy a little sulk. After a few minutes, we continued on our way. Then it happened again. And then again. No apparent overheating, still a quarter of a tank of fuel... we had no idea what the problem was.

To cut a long story short, we called Linda to warn her we might be late, and by the time we called her again in half an hour as agreed, with the good news that we were still making progress, she had called a friend of hers and they had already made towing arrangements and were about to come and get us!! But in the end we made it all the way to her house, although after 100 kms of driving fine, the car did stall twice more in the final 25 kms. That evening we dropped the car off at a mechanic in Red Deer and settled in for a few great days with Linda.

(Due to the car issues, our 3-night stay turned into a 5-night stay and we now have a new (to us) car, but more on that later!!)

Here's a photo of our first night in Red Deer: dinner at Earls Restaurant with Linda...



Next post: dinosaurs and hoo doos!

To view our Alberta road trip photo album in Picasa:
Click here to go to the album overview page.
Click here to start the slideshow where this blog post begins (Thursday).