alberta - part 1 (the flat part)

The Boy and I started our summer vacation with a trip to southern Alberta. Many may not know this, since I wear my raised-in-BC-heart on my sleeve, but I was born in Lethbridge.

We had one day post-Buckwallow to unpack, do laundry, re-pack, and get our butts to the airport. Those 7am flights often seem like a great idea when you are booking them, but when the cab rolls up at 5 to pick us up, I am always cursing my itinerary-making skills. Anyway, painfully early wake up call led to an easy flight, and before we knew it, we were in Calgary. I picked up the rental car while the Boy found our bags and bikes. We were heading straight through town when we decided that we really needed a bit of fuel, for ourselves and the car. We made a second, longer stop to pick up a few other supplies, and then made our way back to the highway, and headed south.

Our only stop on the way down was Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump. It's a really cool old site with a cliff used for hunting buffalo (in case you couldn't figure it out from the name). I hadn't been since I was a kid, and as it was the Boy's first trip to southern AB, it was a good little stop to stretch the legs.

From there, it was on to Lethbridge, where we spent two nights visiting with my grandparents and great uncle. Living so far from my relatives, it's hard to see how much they've aged between visits, but everyone is in good health and good spirits. It was also fun to check in on some of the places I remember from visiting my grandparents every summer after we moved to BC.

Next part of the trip: to the mountains!