Week ending Sep 3, 2015 Vulcan (Keho Lake, Carmangay)

Friday we intended to golf but the smoke from Washington State was the worst we have experienced to date. So bad we stayed in. John brought the air cleaner down from the bedroom to help keep the air in the trailer clean. We spent part of the day golfing and bowling on our Wii. With a bit of luck the wind will change direction and the smoke will ease up.

Saturday again the smoke was bad, our outdoor plans have been put on hold. We did walk up to the store for a few things, but other than that we hung around the inside, checked out some points of interest along our planned trip down the Great River Road.

Sunday after a very windy night, the smoke was a bit better. We headed to the exercise equipment in the park. After a half hour of using the machines we went for a walk and finally arrived back at the trailer just before lunch. It is too windy today to golf, further more it's the weekend and the golf courses are always too busy. Maybe tomorrow we will be able to golf.

Finally golf today. The weather seemed perfect. By the time we got to Keho Golf Course the wind had picked up, but we soldiered on.  It was a nice course. Joan discovered that even a well maintained course doesn't help her game. On our way back to the trailer we stopped and watched the wind surfers on Keho Lake for a few minutes.

Tuesday morning we went to Carmangay to hike on the  Glen G. Mcfarland Memorial Nature trail.

It is a scenic route along the top of the Little Bow River bank.

We watched numerous hawks hunting for their mid-morning snack.  The trail went under the CPR bridge, a landmark used by the Allied Force pilot trainees when they were completing their flight training near Vulcan in WW11 (See our Blog entry Aug 19,2013).

After completing the trail, which took a bit more than an hour we drove out into the countryside to take a closer look at the wind turbines that have sprung up in the area. Carmangay appears to have become another Alberta centre for the generation of wind power.  We noticed that the cows seemed to be enjoying the irrigation system.  

We also saw a flock of gulls  on the gravel road ahead of us, and a bunch in a farmer's pond.

For lunch, we stopped at an Archeogical picnic site which was supposed to have numerous tipi rings, but despite a map showing their location,  we were unable to find evidence of the rings.

Wednesday was another golf day. We started for Stavely, got to the edge of Vulcan, looked at each other laughed and said "oops"  seniors moment, turned around, back to the trailer and loaded the golf clubs into the truck.   The course at Stavely was nice, there is a tournament this weekend, so they are busy spiffing it up. The greens aren't the best, but the way Joan golfs it doesn't matter, John however get's quite frustrated with them.  They were very fast crazy carpet, and had a slope to them that would rival a mountain pass.   It took soft putting to keep the ball on the green.

Thursday morning we had to be in Calgary at the dentist by 11:00, so it was an early morning. Our dental costs were almost all covered by our free blue cross provided by the provincial gov't since we have turned 65.  After the dentist,  we drove out to Banff to scout out an appropriate campsite (ie. one with satellite access between the trees) in their full service campground. After much wandering around with the compass we settled on a site.  The site is not available until Sept 13, (instead of the 8th), so we have to decide whether to stay in Vulcan until then, or go somewhere closer to Banff for a few days.  On our way back to Calgary we stopped in Cochrane to pick up mail and John's prescriptions. Our free blue cross didn't save us quite as much as at the dentists, but it did save us some. By now it is after 6:00 so we picked supper, a Little Caesar's bacon wrapped pizza for John (have to see if it lives up to the advertising) and a sandwich for Joan. We then checked into the Howard Johnson hotel on Macleod trail since Joan has a Dr. appointment at 10:30 tomorrow so it seemed convenient to stay in Calgary overnight.