Saaboteur

Last fall I started a thread with our road trip to Vancouver and Seattle in our Land Rover LR3. Now it's time to post another road trip picture thread! And to note - I won't apologize for the quality of photos (why to people do that when they post pictures?!? Forum members should be so glad that others are sharing photos!). I'm just a car guy with a camera, not a photographer!

But this time, we took my C55 and we only travelled within Alberta, from our home in Edmonton, then to High River, Nanton, Black Diamond, Canmore and Banff. The latter are two towns in the Canadian Rockies. I'm sure most everyone has heard of Banff, but perhaps not Canmore. High River, Nanton and Black Diamond are small towns south of Calgary, and are known as 'cool little towns' because of their...quaintness I suppose. Anyway, the whole point of this little trip was to experience some more local, domestic tourism - without spending a whole pile of money travelling further away. My wife's sister and her family also came with us, my brother-in-law trailing the whole time in their Honda Pilot.

Some pre-departure pictures of the C55 loaded up with our trusty Yakima box and OE Mercedes accessory roof rack. It had just rained, and I managed to capture the shots before the sun dried up all the rain and the car got all spotty again. My neighbour commented that the car looks great with the box on it, the red 'Yakima' sticker really 'popping' with the tail lights, and of course the box being black with the car being black.







At any rate, after watching the Canadian Grand Prix on TV, we headed off - destination High River, Alberta - about 30 minutes south of Calgary. Total distance was only about 300km or so. With our daughter now just 1 year old, I wanted to keep the driving times and distances relatively short. That said, in a few more months, we'll be heading off to Vancouver again, so hopefully she'll make it through the longer drives okay!

High River is where CBC shoots its TV series 'Heartland'. I don't watch it, as its some brouhaha about horses and prairie life and such. Not really my cup of tea, but whatevs, it's the small town's claim to fame. I chose High River because it's just a short drive from Nanton, and it has a Super 8 Motel. Some pictures from the motel parking lot, and the seemingly endless prairie in the background. Did some playing around with colour selection too, don't think it worked out too nicely. The weird alien looking thing hanging in the back is actually an owl mobile - keeps my daughter amused when she sits back there!











Another note - Alberta is apparently the only jurisdiction in North America where you have four ecosystems converging in the same province (mind you, it's a bloody huge province, I believe that all of the UK will fit into Alberta roughly three times). These ecosystems are: mountains, prairies, boreal forests and desert. The desert area is quite small, and consist of the Badlands area near Drumheller - known for its dinosaur digs. We're going to head there next month, so I'll do another road trip thread then.

Saaboteur

The next morning, we munched on the included Super 8 breakfast, then made the short jaunt to Nanton - to visit a war hero. Nanton is not only home to their own bottled water (whoopee!!) but also a Lancaster bomber and the Bomber Command Museum. Lancaster bombers are pretty scarce nowadays, I believe more than half were destroyed during the war. The Nanton Lancaster doesn't fly, unfortunately, but they have restored several of the Rolls Royce Merlin engines to running condition. One day, hopefully it'll fly again.

Another note, this particular Lancaster didn't see action during the war, it was constructed too late to see action. However, it did serve for quite some time in the RCAF in the 50s and 60s. It is painted in the colours of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Willoughby_Bazalgette, the only Albertan to be awarded the Victoria Cross during the Second World War. His VC was awarded posthumously after a mission in a Lancaster.

Managed to snap a few photos of the C55 with the Lancaster, and also a pair of gate guardians, a T-33 Silverstar and a CF-100 Canuck. The latter was a Canadian designed and constructed all weather interceptor, first flown in the 50s.







Ironic moment at the museum, as I was shooting the photos in front of the Lancaster - I arrived there in a German vehicle, and my brother in law in a Japanese one. Double irony - the Pilot is actually made in the US.

After Nanton, we swiftly departed back for High River and lunch at Evelyn's Memory Lane Cafe, as seen in the FoodTV show 'You Gotta Eat Here' (think Canadian version of Diners, Drive Ins and Dives). Lovely mac and cheese, hearty beef stew, and home made chicken sandwich, with the roast chicken fresh from the nearby Hutterite colony. Yum! As we were eating outside, a lovely 996 Turbo pulled up and parked next to the C55. Its rolling stock was especially nice, BBS RGTs I believe.

Saaboteur

Lunch consumed, we left again for our next destination, Black Diamond. The name comes from its mining days. The small town is known for its very well preserved 1920s era downtown. We parked up and walked around a bit...unfortunately, not a very exciting place! But I did snap some shots of the C55 in front of the old Woo's General Store - now an art gallery or something. The town did do a good job of preserving its downtown area...but let me tell you, 'downtown' has a broad meaning in Black Diamond - it was probably just one street, 200m long!

As I was shooting the photos, a lovely old 190SL pulled up and parked behind the C55. Couldn't resist shooting more photos, of course. The driver didn't notice that his right front hub cap came loose shortly after he parked though...













After Black Diamond, we would our way on Highway 22 and parts of 22X through the foothills area of Alberta, ie. the areas just before the mountains. Long straight roads quickly turned into sweeping and undulating corners. Unfortunately, not many opportunities for photos, but the majestic scenery was quite nice. Before you knew it, we were back onto Highway 1 and heading towards the Rocky Mountains - which never fail to take my breath away.

Saaboteur

One of my favourite places to shoot photos is Lac Des Arcs, not far from Canmore and at the very beginning of the mountain range. Shot photos of the LR3 there last September, so this time was the C55's turn! Then it was time to head on into Canmore.









Our home for the next few days would be the condo owned by the senior lawyer in our office. As the sun began to set, I left the others behind at the condo to grab groceries, and to chase the sun's light for some more photos.

Saaboteur

The next couple of days were spent in Canmore and Banff, doing the typical young family stuff - exploring the downtown areas and their shops, bathing in the Banff Upper Hot Springs and checking out the newly renovated Cave & Basin National Historic Site. Cave & Basin was the birthplace of Canada's national parks system, and is home to the Banff Springs Snail, an endangered species. It's the only place in the world where they live! Tiny things, very cool. The Site just reopened a few weeks ago after a $14 million in renos, mostly to better safeguard those tiny snails.

Hanging out in the Upper Hot Springs was the highlight of the trip for me, as it was the first time our little baby girl ever went swimming! Unfortunately, I don't think she enjoyed it that much, but ah well...my neice and nephew had a good time though!

We were fortunate to be away and to have such nice weather in Banff and Canmore. Whilst we were away, Edmonton had a tornado warning! Weird weather indeed. Some more pix from the Upper Hot Springs parking lot and one of Banff Avenue (with bonus 203 content too!) Also spotted a C6 Vette in Canmore, thought it made a nice photo.

ghiaguy

Reading through this post totally made my morning! Good times and great pics!!

Saaboteur

Before I knew it, Thursday had arrived and it was time to get back home. I was due to give a speech for my student's admission to the bar, so I couldn't miss that! However, on several previous visits to the mountains, I had spotted an abandoned gas station outside Canmore, only accessible heading eastward. The last time we were here, we were in the LR3, and I snapped some photos. Naturally, had to do it again in the C55!














And that's that, a little tour of my home province of Alberta. The trip reinforced to me the domestic tourism opportunities...lots to do and see, not very far from home at all!

The car never skipped a beat throughout, with about 1000km travelled. Not a huge distance, but not an insignificant one either. Fuel economy does seem to suffer with the box attached, but oh well, that's unavoidable. I do have plugs, wires, front rotors, front pads, Goodridge stainless lines all around and valve cover gaskets to get onto the car too - that'll be my next project in the coming weeks - hopefully just in time for another short road trip, this time to Drumheller and the Royal Tyrell Museum - dinosaur bones!!

BobC32AMG

Great write-up and beautiful photo's. something else than a car on a driveway..

Thanks again and this inspired me to do the same and share with you guys!

Saaboteur

I was a bit disjointed with the posts - I intended to put them into several different posts, so it took a little while to insert all the photos. So if you visited in the midst of my posting, come back and check out the thread again!

Looking back at them now, I see that the car was tucking the rears - lots of crap in the trunk!

ddtham

Nice photos, thank you for sharing!

What I would do to get my hands on that 190SL... Good God that car is beautiful!!!!

Insomniac

The area of Alberta that was travelled experienced major flooding yesterday. This is the best photo summary I've seen of it. Saaboteur, good thing you went there last week!

http://imgur.com/a/zswIx

Saaboteur

Scary stuff indeed! Strikes very close to home as we were literally just there!

Some news stories on the matter:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/interactives/...lberta-floods/

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/...igh-water.html

The second photo in the link posted by Insomniac is not 50m from the picture of the C55 next to the 996 Turbo. Nuts.

Saaboteur

This is High River (again, right where the 996 Turbo parked next to the C55) yesterday, before it got really bad:

Supgee

Yeah the flooding in the south is pretty intense.
Glad to see you weren't there when it happened.
I couldn't imagine flood damage on the AMG.


Nice pictures Saaboteur, thanks for sharing!