Bears, bears and more bears

I have been without internet service while in Canada
so trying to catch up now.
July 15 - 20, 2012
Great Canadian Barn Dance
Hill Spring, Alberta
Part 1 of 3

Traveling from Bellvue, Alberta to the Great Canadian Barn Dance RV Park near Hillspring, Alberta were magnificant fields of canolola in full bloom.  What a site to see especially when next to other fields of grain that were still green.

As mentioned before, we are on our way to the Region 10 Airstream Rally which encompasses members from Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, British Columbia, Alberta and Saskatchewan.  It's always nice to visit with our friends and meet new ones.  Region 10 also includes Alaska, The Yukon and Northwest Territories.  This is an enormous region.

Finally arriving at the Great Canadian Barn Dance RV Park

I have heard of the Barn Dance place for several years now from friends in BC about what a great place this is.  The Kunkel Family has owned and operated the RV Park, barn dances and musical shows for over 25 years and they know how to have fun.  The Kunkel Family is so very talented, when they are not singing and struming they might be in the kitchen washing dishes or serving dinner, busing the tables or in the office running the business.  I can't say enough about these wonderfully talented folks, they really give you a warm welcome with true western hospitality.

We had all shapes and sizes of Airtreams,

 little ity-bity ones and big long ones.

  

 Our trailer is a 28'

Oops! how on earth do you get a campfire ring caught between the tires.  

More importantly is how do you get out.

It didn't take long for the engineers to show up each one with a different plan on how to get the fire ring out

There is a small lake, bed and breakfast, cabins and many rv spaces.  Our first night here we had a picnic dinner of hamburgers, potato salad, coleslaw and all the fixins', After dinner we had a regular jam session, with several members of our group and members of the Kunkel Family.

Else and Bob from our Washington Airstream group

 and in the red shirt is the very talented  Trever Kunkel

Stu from the BC group along with Trever

Waterton National Park is just around the corner, on our visit there we drove up Red Rock Canyon.  So very beautiful as you can see in the pictures and a big plus was all the bear activity we saw along the way.  Waterton National Park is on the Canadian side o fGlacier National Park in the U.S.

Red Rock Canyon,

 I guess I'm not very good taking pictures with red rocks in it because these look sorted washed out

We also drove to Pincher Creek, about 30 miles away to see the Kootenai Brown Pioneer Village, an outdoor heritage facility, has a magnificient display of the old days that are now long gone.  It's a good thing citizen and/or government groups preserve these heritage sites.  English born John George "Kootenai" was a character who's name came to the Waterton Lakes area in 1865 after crossing the South Kootenay Pass.  He fell in love with this area and its breathtaking vistas and vowed to return,  In 1877 he settled in this area, trading with the First Nations people and hunting.  Later he was integral in the preservation of Waterton Lakes National Park.  Kootenai Brown was appointed the first Forest Warden in Waterton.

Waterton Lake looking south 

Our friend Ron playing with the telegraph 

Kitchen in boarding house

The doctor's office

This is a community park and I took this picture of this lady; see what looks like a string under her and along side her right leg?  Well this is not a string........it is tubing and she is on oxygen!  What an inspiration to all of us.  I'm sure this is not easy for her but here she is pulling weeds.  Three cheers for her!

No chemicals here, just lots of volunteers to work in their beautiful gardens.

One last bear picture, he just would not turn around, so how appropriate for

The End

Safe travels to all, thanks for stopping by

Joe and Nancy