Week ending Jul 7, 2016 Twin Valley Reservoir, Raymond, Police Outpost PP, Warner

On Friday we walked up to the reservoir.  We thought we would try golfing in Stavely, but there was a mixed open tournament on.  We decided to check out Travers Dam Provincial Rec Area.  It was packed.   Twin Valley was a much better choice on a long weekend.

On Saturday,  Joan made waffles for breakfast.   We walked up to the reservoir again.   For supper we had ribs, then watched some Wimbledon and the Nascar race. 

Sunday morning, we drove to Roy's Place in Claresholm for breakfast.    On the way back, we stopped at Stavely again to try a round of golf.  We remembered that it is a good idea to check the calendar at the clubhouse.  The Mixed Open Tournament that the sign is for is next weekend, not this one.  We did most of a round of golf.  The course was quiet enough that Joan shot two balls for more practice.  Even with that, we caught up to a group of 6 people golfing together.  Rather than waiting for them, we repeated a hole and decided we had enough.

On Monday we packed up and headed to Raymond for a week.  Set up at the same site we were in earlier this year, after taking a look at a couple of other sites

After breakfast Tuesday morning, we headed for Police Outpost Provincial Park, south of Cardston.  We stopped in Cardston to pick up a few groceries. The area coming into Police Outpost is beautiful rolling ranch country with the mountains of Waterton in the background.

There was a site beside the road with 3 old abandoned trailers, and a bunch of rock creations.   This site is being 'demolished' by the Cardston County Council.

The campground at Police Outpost has a few too many trees for good satellite reception, which we expected.   As well, even the sites that would be long enough for our trailer were pretty narrow.   With all of the beautiful views in the area, all you would see from the campground would be the poplar trees.  No cell service available here either.  One viewpoint over the lake had an impressive variety of wild flowers along the path.

There is a nice little lake with an island in it.

Outpost Lake

We saw some ducks, including some babies, and a muskrat.

We crossed the wood bridge to the island, and walked the short distance to the far end of the island.  We met a fellow who had caught and released a small trout.  Once we were done with the park, we decided to check out the Outpost Wetlands next to it.   The Wetlands, however, are closed from May 1 to July 31.  
On our way back, we saw picturesque little St. Stephen Catholic Church and cemetery, one of the first churches in southern Alberta.  

St Stephens

Then we carried on to Whiskey Gap, another ghost town.  It was a major point on the smuggling route between Canada and the United States during prohibition, first in Alberta, then going the other way to the States.   We had our lunch at a commemorative sign in Del Bonita.    Del Bonita is a ghost town now, with only a few houses.  It had a significant high school built in 1964, which is obviously not in use anymore.  It's hard to believe that there was a girl from Del Bonita in the university residence when Joan was there.  About 8 km north of Del Bonita, we found the Del Bonita Community Campground, on the North Milk River.  It is on a canoe route, which starts on the North Milk River at Whiskey Gap and goes along the Milk through Milk River, and Writing-on-Stone, with stop points at several bridges along the way.

Milk River Canoe Route

We were surprised at the number of colonies we saw south of McGrath.

Wednesday, we did a trip to the Alberta Birds of Prey.  It was closed when we were in the area in April.   They have lots of owls, eagles, hawks, etc. and even a garter snake.

Great Horned and Barn Owls

Swainsons Hawk

Bald Eagle

Golden Eagle

Then we headed to Lethbridge to do some shopping.  John got new hiking boots to replace the ones that got cut up in the Arizona lava fields. 

Thursday morning, we drove to New Dayton, a very small place south on highway 4, which we noticed had a campground. It was a reasonable spot with 15amp power and water at pull through sites that don't look like they get much use.   There was a sign saying to pay at the store, or call the phone number listed.  We stopped at the only store, which is half liquor store and half groceries. The lady told us that she used to take the payments for the campground, but hadn't been doing it for a while.  When she did, the charge was $10 a night, which would be an excellent price!

We carried on to Warner to the Devil's Coulee Dinosaur & Heritage Museum.  The young ladies gave us quite a nice tour of their display of fossils and casts.  The Devil's Coulee was discovered by 17 yr old Wendy Sloboda, with her father.  The majority of the fossils here were of eggs and embryos, as this was a nesting site for a wide variety of dinosaurs.

 
Then we stopped at the bakery for a loaf of bread, cinnamon bun and sour cream twist which were quite good.  When we parked there, because the front tire was turned in toward the curb, John noticed quite a bit of wear on the inside edge of the tire.   We decided to head for Lethbridge to get the front tires replaced.  On the way there we checked out Ridge County Park, on the south side of the Milk River Ridge Reservoir.  It is a very nice looking park that should work for us in this area. 
At Kal Tire, we were able to get two new tires for the rear and the old rear tires moved to the front.  The service rep told us that the cause of the wear on the inside of the tire was due to bad shocks, so we had them replace the shocks.  While they were doing that we picked up a couple of books and did a bit of walk around downtown Lethbridge before returning to pick up the truck around 4:00 pm.   A busy day.