Dinner for a group of us was a very pleasant Italian Restaurant that was full on a Monday night - no pizzas but a lovely antipasto, and the veal special for me, together with a few bottles of nice Chianti.
Calgary turned on a lovely morning, at 7-8C, quite cool but no sign of last nights wild weather, so everyone dressed according even if the first leg was only a few kms to Kane's, the local Harley dealer for obligatory T shirts and wander around. One of the parts guys at Kane's mentioned that he'd never ventured further than 80km from the city - amazing. The worst part of any trip is getting into and out of cities, so it was with that in mind that we were pleased to see the tail end of Calgary. Judging by the prevalence of cranes in the inner city, civic works on the go, and the scale and grandness of many of the buildings downtown, Calgary is a prosperous oil and prairie town - a far cry from our last visit 30 plus years ago. So back onto the freeway, then onto quieter country roads, long and straight heading south, the farms and ranches also reflecting apparent prosperity, huge paddocks made into round hay bales as far as the eye could see, awaiting the onset of the long and cold winter. Lunch was at literally a one horse town (he was tethered outside) out on the prairies, a town that apparently rarely suffers from much snow, but is prone to extreme winds from time to time. Lundbreck is a community that at is peak boasted 150 residents, but now makes do with about 75, with cheap gas and passing trade just keeping the place ticking over. I exchanged greetings and brief conversations with several locals, one of who, a very pleasant young lady with a toddler and a baby, and no real prospect of escape from the only place she has ever known. Just along the road at another small town named "Frank" was the site of the 1903 Rock slide disaster - an estimated 90 million tons (and that is a lot) of rock was sent crashing through this small mining town in the wee small hours of the morning, killing 70-90 people. Continuing on the theme of disasters, we also stopped in at Sparwood, a coal mining town that surrenders it's young men individually and in groups, sometimes many in a year, other times several years between each sacrifice, but there can be no doubt that there is a price to be paid, and that price is very high. However, Sparwood is probably better known as site of the Worlds biggest truck, a behemoth that weighed over 550 tonnes fully loaded. It was a one of a kind and eventually became too expensive to maintain and is now in retirement, part of the monument to the towns history. It was here I spoke briefly to a French Canadian couple, touring with two young boys on a pair of recumbent bicycles- a hell of a way to see this massive country. Don Malcolm +64 21 924 114 Comments are closed.
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Don MalcolmA perfect day involves being on my Harley with a long ride ahead.
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