Carriages departing Alberta

8/3/2019

How do you find all these off the beaten path places? One of the sources is the Roadtrippers web site. This morning was one of the first disappointments. The Canadian Grain Elevator Discovery Centre was a couple of grain elevators, but nothing was open and it looked like there hadn't been any activity for a long time.

For rail buffs there was an old stock car on the spur that once serviced grain elevators.

Not all stops can be winners, so we continued on our route back towards the States.

Cardston was the first town we visited in Alberta back in mid-June. We noticed the Remington Carriage Museum, but were anxious to reach Waterton Lakes, so passed it by at that time.

This time through, we decided to see what the museum that "tells the story of horse drawn transportation in North America" was all about.

With over 240 carriages in their collection, this museum more than made up for the sad Grain Silos from earlier in the day.

A fabric covered camping wagon was an early predecessor to the van we travel in today.

A highly decorated carriage once provided stylish transportation for the elite.

Not all carriages had wheels. This horse-drawn wagon was ready for winter.

All sorts of businesses had wagons suited to their trade.  

We wondered what a car was doing in a horse drawn carriage museum. It turns out that Robert McLaughlin owned the largest carriage manufacturer in the British Empire. His sons Sam and George moved with the times, turning the McLaughlin Carriage Company into McLaughlin Buick which became General Motors of Canada. Another son, John James, started making ginger ale founding the "Canada Dry" company.

On the way out of the museum we passed through a display of the tack used to connect horses to the carriages.

Carriage rides were available, but we opted to let these horses stay in the shade of a portico rather than working out in the midday sun.

If you are going to be exploring Alberta, you might want to look into buying an Experience Alberta Pass to save on admission to provincial museums like this one. It worked out well for us.

Leaving Alberta with lots of fond memories, we crossed into the US where we surrendered avocados and some apples of undetermined origin. Fruit grown in the US or Canada would have been okay, but we didn't think to purchase apples with origin stickers.

We took a break to stretch at the Amtrak station in Cut Bank Montana .

Unmanned except for an hour before trains arrived, the waiting room was open. The only thing on the wall was a big rail line map showing the tracks serving the area.  Beth would have liked to see this in relation to our camp sites.

Chester, Montana was our last stop for the day. Located in Liberty County, their historical society had turned their one room school house and a church into a small museum.

I remember these "Think and Do" books from sometime in my childhood.

An eclectic mix of local items included wigs, calculators, and a general ledger from before the age of computers.

Camping for the night was free (donations accepted) at the Chester City Park. Flush toilets and a covered picnic shelter were adjacent to a playground.

Walking around the park, we met Chris O’Hara. At age 65 he was biking from Beverly, MA to the Pacific Ocean. We wish him well as he climbs the western mountains.

Five RV’s plus Chris’s tent spent a quiet night in this city park.

Today's journey from Alberta to Montana.