Leaving Regina we filled our tank and continued our westward movement with the destination of Medicine Hat. Along the way we had some great discoveries. We stopped in the town of Moose Jaw, what a great name for a town, where we visited the Western Development Museum. This museum focused on transportation of all sorts and had a great collection of planes trains and automobiles as well as bicycles, motorcycles and boats.
Moose Jaw is also the home to the Snowbirds, the Canadian Air Force’s aerobatic team. We have seen then perform on more that one occasion and can testify that they are fantastic flyers. Part of the museum was dedicated to the Snowbirds and housed several of their planes from days gone by. From here we went downtown and I sketched a bit while Carol toured the town on foot. The visit was completed with a stop at a Dairy Queen… can’t beat that.
Later in the day the plan was to find a place off the side of the road for lunch and we took a side road in Swift Current. Carol pointed to a distant hill and said ‘what’s going on up there?’. The hill was covered with cars - so we went to explore and discovered a kite flying festival. A once a year event! Thousands of people were in attendance so we had to go and see. The kites were amazing and some of the ‘celebrity flyers’ were really quite good kite pilots. We walked around the hilltop for about n hour watching kites and people. One of the things that amused me was that if you looked away from the kites, off the grounds, it was prairie as far as you could see.
The landscape has been phenomenal and although it is often described as featureless I have found it the be beautiful, and ever changing. It has gone from dead flat to gentle rolling hill to hilly grasslands without trees, the badlands I think. It was after seven when we got to our room and discovered that our door opened right onto the pool. We spent some time in the pool and the hot Jacuzzi next to the pool where we met an interesting couple who gave us a lot of good suggestions about where to go and what to see once we get west of Calgary. We are really looking forward to the mountains. So today is another day that is short on words and long on photos. I hope you enjoy the gallery below.
Click any image for a larger view.
