We left Great Falls this morning and planned to cross the border into Canada at Sweetgrass/Coutts. It rained on us the entire trip today. . . hard at times. Then came the winds. Ugh. I thought at one time something was wrong because it seemed that the little motorhome was actually stalling. But it was the head wind of 40 mph pushing against us. That was a really weird feeling.
We crossed the border around 11 a.m. We were asked a few questions and we were through. No big deal. We were well prepared, but they didn't ask any of the things we thought they would. No questions about food or anything.
We drove on through Lethbridge and on to Fort Macleod, Alberta. We are camped at Daisy Mae RV
Park. It's not too bad and we are right on "Old Man River." After we had lunch we decided to go to the "Head Smashed In Buffalo
Jump." It is about 15 miles away. This is supposed to be the best preserved and represented buffalo jump in North America. It is quite interesting and they had a very nice interpretive center with relevant displays and many artifacts. There was a walkway out to the actual jump site. It was a little difficult to see the cliff, because you were looking out from the
top. This is where the Indians would stampede the buffalo and they would fall to their deaths over the cliff. It sounds cruel. Any animals who survived were quickly killed by warriors who were waiting down below. Once the kill was over, they dragged the carcasses out into the meadow to butcher. All parts of the animals were used and the Indians would process all the meat for the winter season when food was scarce. Having visited both the Vore Buffalo Jump in South Dakota and this one, I think the Vore jump is a little more impressive. It is much, much smaller, with just one kill site, but you actually walk down into the pit where the buffalo landed. A building has been erected over the actual archeological dig and you can see the actual excavation in process. At Head Smashed In, the actual archeological site is not visible. There was a path below which may have gone there, but it was misting, so we didn't take that.
We would have spent more time, but there was a group of children there from a local reservation. They were rude and obnoxious. When we were out at the cliff, they pushed and shoved us as we were on the highest part looking down to take pictures. Deanna was afraid one was going to push me over.
I finally moved him aside with my arm telling him I was trying to take a picture. The same thing happened when we were inside looking at the exhibits. Although we tried to stay ahead of them, they were moving faster because they weren't reading anything. (How is it that this was any kind of educational experience for them when they weren't trying to learn anything from it?) I again moved a little snit out of the way with my arm when he invaded my picture. As I walked away, one of the chaperones tapped my shoulder and apologized for the student. I told her I thought they were very rude and that they had been rude out on the jump side as well. She apologized again and I told her again I thought they were disrespectful of others who were there. As we walked away I heard her tell the group that they needed to be respectful of others who were visiting the museum.
When we left, I made comments on the visitor's roster saying that I thought they should have days set aside for accommodating the general public and not have any school groups on those days. We learned that four busloads of students had just left when we arrived. We probably would not even have gone in. It is a shame that paying adults have their experience cut short and ruined by unruly groups of students, most of whom I would guess learned nothing from the experience. And remember, I am a retired teacher of 34 years. But it was a great historical site and one I had read extensively about. I am certainly glad we went.
We had our first casualty of the trip today. Tab and Deanna's windshield took a rock and cracked. The 10" crack kept running while on the trip to the buffalo jump site. I told him he was supposed to wait until Alaska to break a windshield.
When we returned, he called from the phone in the camp office and found a place that would replace it tomorrow. So at 8:30 in the morning they will be going to get that fixed. We are going with them. They really don't want to leave their motorhome and I thought it would be good for us to go and we can just all sit in our motorhome and watch a movie, plan the next drive, and generally keep an eye on their motorhome. So that is what we are doing. We may return here tomorrow night or we may move on. Just have to wait and see how the repair goes.
As you can see, we have free wifi tonight! AND. . . it's working great.
Till next time. . .
Dale
