Day 4

The morning of day 4 was rough. We'd been camping for a while, and were getting weary of all the work involved. So as I made breakfast, Mike wandered off with his cell phone. I fantasized that he was phoning to book us a hotel that night - and in reality, he was! He'd booked us into a hotel in Oyen, AB, which is right near the border of Sask. We needed to recharge, and have a good night's sleep, and make good time, and it was just the carrot we needed to cover Alberta in one day.

Our frst stop was Bar U Ranch, just south of Calgary. We lived there for more than two years,a nd never knew it was even there! It's a national historical site, of what was a HUGE ranch. It's bread and butter was cattle, but they became famous for breeding these ginormous french horses. The owner was never able to find a good horse, capable of the heavy work of an Alberta ranch, so when he found this breed, he decided to breed them for his neighbours. I forget the name, but they're called the gentle giants, because they're HUGE, but have really nice temperaments.

We totally lucked out on ths one - when we arrived, we were told the wagon was in use by a camp group. But as we were looking at one of the old horse barns, it pulled around the corner, and the group's leader invited us aboard, and we got their tour. The camp leader took this photo.

Part of the special tour was being able to see one of the horses bred there up close. It's hard to tell how big it is from this photo, because we're up really high. This horse wasn't born at the ranch - they bought it from a woman with five kids. On weekends, she would load all her kids on this horse, and set it loose on the farm. Now and then, a kid would fall off, and all they had to do was lead it to the nearest fence. This horse would just wait patiently while the kid climbed on the fence, and scrambled back on, whether it was on its rump, or over its nose and down its back.

Joan on one of the displays

Dave and Joan, checking out some horses in the coral. Dave loved this ranch! He's definitely our biggest animal lover, and ran around yelling "horsey! horsey! horsey!"