Day 29 5/27/15

On the road again at 9:30. We crossed the Continental Divide again (West to East) at Crowsnest Pass and entered Alberta.

At 11am we stopped to see the Frank Slide – a 1903 landslide that killed about 90 residents of the coalmining town of Frank, AB. The interpretive center at the site is first rate and we passed a couple of hours viewing presentations and looking at the exhibits.

Leaving Frank, we turned North on Canada 22 to follow the Alberta Cowboy Trail.  We stopped for lunch at a campground/picnic area along the Oldman River and met a wandering Fly fisherman from Calgary and we talked for an hour about fishing, computers, places to see, camping, government and all manner of stuff.

About 2:30 we got back on the road seeing lots of cattle but nary a cowboy in sight. As we neared Longview, AB, we began to see oil wells (a first for us in Canada.)

We arrived in Black Diamond at the Lions Club Campground at 3:45 and, after setting up the rig, walked to the only Hotel in town (about ½ mile) for an early dinner.  Local beers and Buffalo wings were our choice and it was all excellent.

We left to a chorus of thunder and lightning, then rain, then hail and decided that we just had to duck into the Bistro on Main for a dessert of warm apple pie with ice cream served up by our tiny Korean waitress who was almost always busy telling the giant Korean cook what to do.

When we left the bistro, the rain picked up again so we darted into a drug store to buy a couple of plastic ponchos but they didn’t have them.  We did convince the nice checkout girl to give us a couple of plastic shopping bags to cover our heads. What a sight!