Today we‘ll be taking the three plus hour drive south east from here in Canmore to Lethbridge where Emma and Michael live.
Its a regular zoo out on the road. We start off on the Trans Canada Highway, which, as the name suggests, goes right across the country and is one of the worlds longest roads. This isnt enough however to stop deer appearing at random in front of trucks herbing along at 110 km per hour. They do look quite young; I wonder what their average life expectancy is? We turn off onto the much more sedate Highway 22 which wends its way south through the Rockies rolling foothills. Its all farmland here, with cows grazing contentedly in lush green pastures. But the warnings It seems we now need to worry not only about deer, but also their giant cousins, elk and moose, and theyve crowded separate signs with pictures of all three onto the same post. They could have saved a couple of panels and just suggested it might not be beneficial to your health to collide with any big hairy things with antlers. Ive seen pictures of moose; theyre absolutely enormous, and Im pretty sure
I know off second best if we came round a bend and found one standing in the middle of the road. And there are warnings about bears. Huh? I thought bears only lived in forests, and there arent too many of them here. Im now more than a bit worried about the welfare of the cows. I‘m not sure if bears eat cows, but if theyve got a taste for hikers as we heard yesterday, why not I suppose. I think Id probably buy tickets to see a scrap between an angry bull and a crazed grizzly. I wonder how often that happens.
The local sign writers tire of the animal warnings and move onto other forms of hazard - wind gusts. These are a bit like warnings about falling rocks - what exactly are they suggesting you do to stop yourself getting crushed, or in this case blown into the nearest paddock or the path of an truck. Use another road perhaps, but by the time youve seen the signs its probably a bit late for that.
We stop at the very cute settlement of Bragg Creek for a coffee. I remember this from when we were here in 2019, and it still looks like its been lifted straight off the set of a Wild West movie. As seems to be the case everywhere in Canada, the owner of the coffee shop couldnt be any more hospitable if he tried. We sit outside with a few other happy campers, and sip our beverages as we listen to music playing almost inaudibly in the background. Proprietor man then appears from nowhere looking very concerned. It seems hes worried that the music might be too loud and asks us if we want him to turn it down. It must be very stressful being this polite. I wonder what he does when half the customers want the music blaring and the rest want to enjoy their coffee in silence.
We drive into Lethbridge and see Emma and Michaels apartment for the first time. We feel like we know the bathroom roof and shower head intimately already - Emma always seems to have her iPad camera pointing at them when we talk to her in the middle of the night when Michaels asleep. Their pad is very cute, as is the latest addition to their family, their cat Lloyd.
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