We got up earlier than usual and had breakfast, then checked out of the hotel by 9:00 am.
We are heading South of Lethbridge and going to visit Writing-on-Stone Provincial Park.
It is about a 2 hour drive from our hotel. Along the way we saw this train hauling wind tu
rbine pieces.
We stopped in Taber AB to find the Uniroyal Gal, another roadside attraction.
We had to get around this slow moving vehicle, a harvester on a trailer.
We stopped for a break at the Milk River Visitor Centre. This is well designed and contained a lot of information about Alberta and the surrounding area. There was a large Dinosaur outside. Dinosaur bones can be found all throughout Alberta.
There was an exhibit for the Buffalo Jump that we had visited a few days earlier.
We continued along our way and were warned not to run over any snakes.
We arrived at the entrance to the Writing-on-Stone Provincial Park.
There were several display boards outside showing the native pictographs that are found in this area.
We went inside the visitor centre to learn more about this provincial park.
There were many displays and presentations inside. After looking at everything we went back out to our car to tour around the park. This park has many hoodoos. We have seen hoodoos before, they are basically spires of rock. Very interesting to look at.
There are many native petroglyphs throughout the park, but they are in restricted areas and you can only see them on the park ranger led tours. We were either too late or too early for the scheduled tours, but there is one petroglyph site that you can hike to that does not require an escorted tour. We drove to the trail head and parked our car. The hike is about 1 km in length. This is called the Battle Scene Trail.
The trail was steep in places, but we made it through the hoodoos to the site of the petroglyphs.
It was rather disappointing, after hiking all that way, to find that the petroglyphs were barely visible on the rock face. Eventually as time passes, and weathering continues they will disappear all together, but even now they are pretty faded. You really have to look hard to find them. According to the scratches in the rock, a large battle took place at this location.
Good thing there was a display sign to explain what we are looking at.
On the hike back up to the car we spotted a mule deer.
Back in the car, we exited the park and headed towards our hotel in Swift Current SK.
The drive was beautiful, a bit slow because of repaving, but there was lots to see along the way.
We have passed by many many fields of canola on this vacation, but this is the first time we have noticed bee hives set up near the fields. In the fields amongst the canola are these tent like structures.
In Bow Island AB we stopped for a late lunch and a photo opportunity with another roadside attraction. This is Pinto MacBean. Bow Island is the Pinto Bean capital of Alberta.
Passing through Medicine Hat AB along the Trans Canada Highway, we passed by the Saamis Teepee that we visited on our way to Calgary 3 weeks ago.
A half hour later and we are leaving Alberta behind us and crossing into Saskatchewan.
We are surrounded again by oil well pumps of every size and description.
We arrived at our hotel in Swift Current.
It was a longer than usual day for us, up and out of the hotel by 9:00 am and then the hiking and walking around at the provincial park. We are too pooped to go out for dinner so we order a pizza delivered to our room and take it easy for the rest of the evening.
We can sleep in again tomorrow.
To see all of our photos from today, you can find them on our FLICKR site.
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