MYOWN RIVER RANCH - AUGUST 2011

WE'RE BACK!!!Arriving here always brings a deep feeling of quiet and tranquility. There aren’t really words to describe the quiet beauty of this place. Even after being on vacation for a week, arriving here felt like being on a holiday from the outside world.

After unpacking, I went out to look for the “resident beasts”, Ogie and Canada the barn cats. I did some calling, but with no result. I worried – had anything happened since our visit in February? Before long, though, the familiar ginger tyrant came swaggering down the driveway from the barn. Ogie. I suppose he’d considered me for a while and then figured that since I knew his name, I must be okay.

WHAT A WONDERFUL EVENING!

Dinner was simple, but good. Beer butt chicken on the barbecue, corn on the cob, Caesar salad, dessert and wine.
The wine consumption carried on out to the hot tub. That hot tub is always wonderful – especially at night! The sound of the wind rustling the leaves in the trees all around us, the river running by, the stars, the moon. Ahhhh!

After we came in from the hot tub, we sat in the dark, looking out the window at the sight before us – there was a ¾ moon playing hide and seek among the clouds, and when it came out, it reflected on the fast-running water of the river. Right then, out of over 5,500 songs on Bob’s iPod, Andy Williams began crooning “Moon River”. “Two drifters, off to see the world. There’s such a lot of world to see.” Old folks will remember this beautiful song. Young folks should click on the link and listen. Perfect at that instant. We couldn’t have scripted the moment more perfectly.
The quality of the moon/river shot isn’t great. I took it from inside the house, against the window. But the thought is there.
GOOD MORNING!!!When we stay at the ranch, I am eager to get out of bed in the morning and run to the window. The only other place I do that, Bob reminded me, is Orca View Cottage in Sooke. This morning I was treated to a flock of nine geese having a little rest in the sun down by the river. A walk along the river later revealed “evidence” that they visited here frequently.

OGIE AND THE CHIPMUNK:Cat drama. After breakfast, I spotted Ogie coming out of the high grass by some trees with something a little more substantial than a mouse in his mouth. I chose to ignore this. A little while passed until I noticed him lounging in the grass. “Good,” I thought “he’s done with the deed.” Not so. He was simply playing with it. The “it” was actually a little chipmunk. At one point, Ogie and the chipmunk stared each other down from opposite sides of the springy bucking horse thing. Of course, I went running out yelling at the cat. The chipmunk went running with the cat in full pursuit. It took a full half day of stalking, but Ogie did eventually bag his prey and I figured that we would be presented with the gift later (Ogie likes his good deeds to appear anonymous). I must say, though, that Ogie is a skilled hunter and when he has a task at hand, he is incredibly focused. Even calling his name and bribing him with belly rubs won’t distract him.

Next day ... the continuing saga of Ogie and the chipmunk. Turns out that the little fella wasn’t dead after all, that Ogie was simply “storing” it somewhere, or just releasing it … or it escaped yesterday. Because as I write this, the chipmunk is inside the tire that is the base for the bucking horse, and Ogie is stalking it. I give up. Maybe it’s a game that they’ve been playing for months.

Postscript: After that second morning, I never did see that chipmunk again. R.I.P. little rodent.

DEER, DEAR!:

One evening, I went out for a little walk with Ogie up to the barn and the road and back. Approaching the house, I decided to go down to walk along the river. As I turned and began walking down the lawn, right ahead of me were three male deer. Absolutely gorgeous. Unfortunately, I scared them away, and besides, had no camera so no pictures. You’ll just have to believe me. Bob didn’t even get to see them. L

We did, however have a beautiful fully grown deer who visited the yard up near the barn pretty much every evening at around 7:30.
She’s lovely to watch. We were fascinated by how aware she was of everything around her – sights, sounds. Even the sound of the dishwasher changing cycles inside the house, some 400 feet from the barn, made her ears twitch and she would look toward the house and watch it for a while.

OUR "BIG DRIVE":

At Myown River Ranch, we’re never too eager to go anywhere or do anything, but some earlier research into back roads of Central Alberta mapped out a drive that we were interested in taking … one that would take us past the Ranch and deliver us back “home” at the end of it all.

We began the 120 km round trip from the point where Coal Camp Road (where the Ranch is) and Highway 27 meet, just west of Sundre. Although we’ve travelled Coal Camp Road many times, we paid closer attention to the landmarks along the way – like the old steam tractor that had been pulled from the bottom of the Red Deer River where it had been buried during the flood of 1915 – and the many beautiful places along the Red Deer River.

At an intersection, Coal Camp Road branched into Highway 734, a narrow, unpaved back road through some beautiful countryside. This road is so remote that, besides some logging trucks and a few other vehicles, the only other traffic we encountered was a herd of cattle congregated on the road. Hey – it’s their property. We had to wait until they were darned good and ready to moooooo-ve.
We enjoyed some amazing views as we drove along – ranchland, a river confluence where McGee Creek meets up with the Red Deer River, through forests that had been devastated by a fire that ravaged the area in 2001, and mountain peaks including the James Pass. We stopped by a river where the remnants of an old wooden bridge jutted from the river bank next to the new steel bridge that replaced it, and sparkling streams and wildflowers.

ANOTHER MORNING ...Because it is so quiet, you become very aware of sounds that in a busier place would be lost. Such was the sound, one morning, of a group of crows lined up on the fence right below our bedroom window having an animated, but orderly, conversation. They spoke in turn, and you could identify individual “voices”. But come on … it was 6 o’clock in the morning!! Bob had to go to the door and knock to discourage their meeting.

Too funny! But I understand now why a group of crows is referred to as a “murder” because, in my heart at that moment …

OUR "NEIGHBOURS" ACROSS THE RIVER:Across the river from the Ranch is ranchland. Aside from the cowboy we met back in October, we’ve never seen a person there – just an ever-changing assortment of livestock who appear at different times through the day.

There are usually cattle, and quite frequently horses. This time, there was a herd (flock?) of sheep on a couple of occasions. The sheep are nice … okay to watch, though they don’t appear to be particularly bright or well organized. However, they do have a sheep-dog (looked to be a Great Pyranese) who was very well organized and was able to organize and motivate the sheep into moving in a cohesive way. I wished that I had a super-duper camera that could get a great shot of him.

SUMMER STORMS:

Summer storms are an almost daily occurrence in Alberta, and even more dramatically in Central Alberta where sometimes the weather can become quite violent, so you are particularly aware of changes in the sky and the proximity/frequency of thunder and lightening.

We were treated to some wonderful storms while we were there (happily not of an extreme violent nature).

YA HA TINDA RANCH:I can assure you that when Bob and I are at Myown River Ranch, we don’t do a lot of “big thinking”, so one of the burning questions" that we’ve had since beginning to go there is: "Where the heck are those honkin’ gigantic horse trailers going?" And by gigantic, I mean … half the size of a Greyhound Bus. And they are almost constant. There is a large guest ranch two kms down the road – Bar 75 – and we assumed that some went there, but what about the rest?

On our last day there, we took a drive to find the answer to this question … and to see a place that we’d wondered about before.

I had mentioned that on one day, we took that long drive that went one way on Highway 734. On this day, we went the other way. It wasn’t a particularly sunny day at that point, but not awful. The road at that point was a dirt road, but in fairly good shape. As we drove, the road became more narrow, “a little” bumpier, we began to climb … and then the rain started.

You know how sometimes you reach a point where it makes as much sense to keep going on to your destination as it does to turn around and never reach your destination? Well, we reached that point and made the decision to keep going. Remember – we are in a PT Cruiser, and we are driving over narrow, muddy roads that have been well-travelled by big trucks pulling big horse trailers, followed by RV’s. It was a challenge. We did, however, pass through some amazingly beautiful territory, especially as we got closer to Ya Ha Tinda Ranch. This area is right on the border of Banff National Park, and as you drive toward the Ranch, you are surrounded by the mountains, and it is incredible!

Finally, we reached our destination – Ya Ha Tinda Ranch! The Ranch is a working ranch that is Federally funded. This is where they train the horses that work in the National Park system. As we found out, it is also incredibly popular with people with a lot of money who like to go camping in the mountains with their horses. There were RVs the size of buses parked next to horse trailers of equal size. There was every imaginable configuration of RV / trailer that you can picture. There were horses!! And there was rain. Pouring rain. No pictures.

There are beautiful falls that you can hike to from there. It’s about a 30 minute hike in / 30 out. The rain kind of discouraged that, but someday, we’ll try it again. I think I need to train for it. The people who told us it was 30 minutes in were young and fit.

UNTIL THE NEXT TIME:As always, it is a little painful to leave Myown River Ranch, we love it so much. We spent part of the morning putting it back in the perfect condition we found it in, and then began to say our good-byes …

… to the river,
... to the house,
… to the woods,
… to the cats.

We’ll miss you. We’ll be back as soon as we can.

MAGICAL MONTANA: GOING TO THE SUN ROAD / WEST GLACIER - August 2011

Leaving Beaver Mines and heading to Montana through Pincher Creek and on toward Waterton to cross at Chief Mountain Border Crossing. The drive there was beautiful.

The border crossing itself was pretty uneventful – three minutes from pulling up to the Stop sign to being in the USA. The border patrol was actually pleasant.


And there we were – in Montana! We had seen Chief Mountain from Canada before, but until you’re in Montana, you don’t get the iconic view of Chief Mountain -- its unique flat top shape.

After a fairly quick drive through some very beautiful country and a quick stop at St. Mary’s, we finally entered Glacier National Park, heading toward Going to the Sun Road. Wow! The first part of the drive was extraordinarily beautiful and we stopped for a lot of pictures.
Two of the most beautiful spots along the way were St. Mary’s Lake / Wild Goose Island and the Sunrift Gorge.



We climbed steadily, but gradually, and it wasn’t too long before we were in the midst of the most spectacularly gorgeous scenery I’d ever seen. It was everything I’d hoped for … even more. We were surrounded by mountains that plunged into valleys with rivers running through them like thin blue ribbon winding its way through the lush growth of trees.

Glaciers and waterfalls … springs running from the sheer rocks along the road … beautiful wildflowers growing out of cracks in the rocks. Simply stunning. As always, there is considerable construction being done on the road, which is narrow at best and reduced to one-lane most of the way, so there were long periods of being stopped waiting for on-coming traffic to get through. We didn’t mind, though. If you’re going to be stuck in traffic, there’s no more beautiful place to be stopped.




There are too many beautiful pictures to place here, so please click here to view a slide show of some of the amazing sights we saw along the way.

After a day of travelling through some amazingly beautiful places, we were delighted to check into our “West Glacier home” – the Silver Wolf Chalets. Lovely little log cabins, very nicely decorated. The property is extremely well kept – you can tell that the owners and staff (wonderful, cheerful Janice) take great pride in the property.

After settling in, we decided on an early dinner in West Glacier and we chose the Belton Chalet Tap Room. Dining room menu was available in the Tap Room as well. We started off by sharing the Filet & Elk Mini-Burgers. Yummy. I had the crab cakes with a salad: spinach, blue cheese, apples, red onion, and ne of the yummiest thing I’ve ever tasted – walnut/bacon brittle (everything is better with bacon). Bob had the Shrimp Thai Salad and he wasn’t nearly as happy with his meal as I was with mine. We continued our discovery of wonderful new beers – I am crazy about Moose Drool Ale, and Bob had Deschuttes Black Porter (which he’d had before in Washington) and a Blackfoot IPA.

After dinner, we headed back to our cabin to relax on our porch with a glass of wine ... and to listen to the train go by. Just like at home!

For our second day in West Glacier, we drove back to the Park again, hoping to be able to do a little hike in Cedar Grove. Unfortunately we were not able to find a parking spot. The nearest place we could have put the car would have yielded a longer hike than we’d planned on taking. Oh well … on the list for “next time”.

We drove along beautiful Lake McDonald – taking pictures along the way. At one point, the lake was so still, the reflections in the water were perfect. I took a couple of pictures of that, and then – a speedboat went roaring by on the other wise. So much for mirror-like images! We took a little side trip to the famous Lake McDonald Lodge – one of the grand old National Park hotels. It opened in 1914 and sits on the shore of Lake McDonald. It reminded us of Jasper Park Lodge – without the snootiness.
Lake McDonald Lodge also played a role in the horrific events of August 13, 1967 which was referred to as “The Night of the Grizzlies” at which time there were two grizzly attacks just miles apart in West Glacier Park where they hadn’t been any attacks since the park opened. One of the victims, Michele Koons, was a summer student working at the Lodge.

After a little rest at the cabin, we headed into Whitefish for dinner. Whitefish is a very cool town. It’s a resort town – sort of like Canmore – busy during ski season and just really, really cool the rest of the year. There is a City Beach which is part of the glacial Whitefish Lake and on the evening we were there, it was smokin’ hot and that beach was BUSY.
We found the downtown area with no problem, and as is typical for Bob, he managed to find a parking spot right in front of the restaurant we were planning to dine at, in spite of the fact that the Farmers’ Market was going on at the end of the block. We were also very close to The Great Northern Brewing Company – really awesome microbrewery. We had to taste their fine products, of course. I had the Big Fog ESB (a really nice amber ale) and Bob had the Going To The Sun IPA (wasn’t overly “hoppy” – nice). They also give generous samples there. We tried their porter – very, very nice – and a Huckleberry Wheat Beer. I’m not usually a fan of fruity beer, but this one was nice. (I really wish that Canada had more high-quality microbreweries, like they do in some areas of the States. BC has a few, Ontario and Quebec do too. Alberta has some really good ones, but still has a long way to go.)
Although we didn’t have reservations, we were able to get into a great restaurant in downtown Whitefish – Tupelo Grille & Fine Wines.
Our calamari starter was … meh … just okay. Bob’s dinner (Cajun Creole Combo – fried catfish, shrimp creole, crawfish etoufee) was outstanding, and my Chicken Marsala was pretty scrumptious too. And we did NOT say NO to dessert. Bread pudding. Bring it on!
What a wonderful evening – back to the cabin for a glass of wine with our “company” and an early bedtime. Off to Butte the next day.

Sadly, we did notice, though, that on the 25 mile stretch between West Glacier and Whitefish, there were 41 roadside memorial crosses (both sides). This is straight highway. What the heck do those people do there?

MARVELOUS MONTANA: BUTTE - August 2011

Up in the morning, packed up, and hitting the road for Butte. I should mention a lovely service that they provide at the Silver Wolf Chalet: they set up your full-size coffee pot for you the day before, so all you have to do in the morning is hit the “on” button, plus, they provide a basket with apples, huge (Costco) muffins, and individual boxes of cereal. In the fridge, there are small containers of real milk, and a bottle of orange juice. Lovely because you can pick up your muffins and fruit to take with you on the road. Nice idea!

There are two routes to get from West Glacier to Butte – the more direct Interstate route that takes you through the city of Missoula … or a slightly more meandering highway that takes you through the countryside. Easy decision for us – countryside it is! This route took us along Swan Lake on MT 83 South – it is a BIG lake. It was a lovely, peaceful drive through some beautiful countryside surrounded by mountains and forest. As we continued on MT-200, the scenery changed ever so slightly – mountains, foothills, sagebrush, Ponderosa Pine. As we approached Butte, we encountered heavy rain for about 10 minutes. Then back to pleasant weather.

We still had lots of time before checking into our accommodation and we were HUNGRY. Our destination: Matt’s Place! Matt’s Place opened in 1930 at the peak of the copper mining boom in Butte, and is the oldest drive-in restaurant in Montana. It has been given a place in the National Register of Historic Places. It still retains its 1936 counter and 1950’s lighting fixtures. But what is truly special about Matt’s is the food – yes, burgers!!! Real burgers with no filler cooked on top of the original 1930 cast-iron griddle, real fries (I ate every one of them and I am not a fries fan), and their milk shakes … made with ice cream that they make on-site, served in the tall glass with the other half still in the tall silver beaker. So. Freakin’. Good. Matt’s Place is a gem.

With full bellies, we were off to explore Butte. Butte is a mining town and like most mining towns, has seen better days. It’s also rich with history. Mining towns, whether it’s my hometown of Glace Bay or the towns of Frank and Hillcrest in the Crowsnest Pass, are no strangers to large-scale tragedy and like those towns, Butte too has seen its share.

In 1895, there was a spectacular explosion and fire that ripped through Butte’s downtown. A fire had begun in the Royal Milling company’s warehouse and Butte’s fire department (the first professional fire department in the US) was on hand to battle it. This warehouse was adjacent to the Kenyon Cornell warehouse, and unknown to the fire fighters, explosive powder was being stored there. As they thought they almost had the original fire under control, there was a horrible explosion and pretty much the entire fire department, plus many by-standers, were killed. The fire destroyed much of the downtown, and I wonder if all the red brick buildings in the downtown area are as a result of that.



Another tragedy that hit Butte was the Granite Mountain Disaster of June 8, 1917 when an accident 2,000 feet underground resulted in the deaths of 168 miners. We visited the Granite Mountain Memorial and there we learned a great deal of the history of mining in that area and about the rise of the labour movement in that area.


Butte, in better times, was known as “The Richest Hill on Earth” because of the silver and copper mines, copper being especially valuable. There are still signs of old, closed mines, but now there is a great deal of open-pit mining being done.



From the Granite Mountain Memorial, you also get one of the best views of Our Lady of The Rockies. Now, she is impressive! The statue sits on top of the Continental Divide and is 90 feet high, and is 3,500 feet above the town.

The story of the Lady is fascinating: In 1979, Bob O’Bill’s wife was seriously ill with cancer. Bob was a religious man, and prayed to the Blessed Virgin Mary, vowing that he would make a 5 foot statue of her in his back yard if his wife recovered. Happily she did, and Bob began to make good on his promise, but the vision changed – instead of a 5 foot statue in his back yard, it became a mountain top statue nearly the size of the Statue of Liberty. The statue was built by volunteers using donated materials. The Lady is a monument to women everywhere, especially mothers. She is lit up at night and is very visible.

Now, our accommodation in Butte! What can I say? Toad Hall Manor is without a doubt one of the most incredibly beautiful homes we’ve ever been in. Elegant, yet whimsical. The hosts, Glenn and Jane (aka Mr. Toad and Lily -- from Wind in the Willows) are hosts extraordinaire.


Glenn is a retired architect and it shows in every tiny detail throughout the house. He’s also a damn fine foodie and a gadget inventor/collector – knocked my socks off. Some of the lovely services that they provided were little stations of port and sherry throughout the house, complimentary for guests. Before dinner, they open “the bar” serving drinks at no charge to guests, along with great conversation. Glenn drove us to a nearby restaurant and gave us his phone number to call for a drive home … so that we could enjoy our dinner & drinks, worry-free.

Our lovely room even had its very own, private patio. I should point out that the beautiful patio tiles … well, our host Glenn, cast four molds in concrete, different colours, and set out the design himself. Ummm … a little intimidating? Yes. But incredibly cool.

The house is next to a lovely golf-course, and the next door neighbor was Evil Knievil. I did try to take a picture of the house, which seemed quite grand, but the Private Property / Beware of Dog signs on the gate scared me away.

We will definitely return to Butte but for a longer period of time. So much we didn’t see, like the infamous (and haunted!) Dumas Brothel. Butte is an amazing place!