Day 42 - Moose Jaw and Medicine Hat

On Thursday it was my dad's turn to show us around Moose Jaw where we saw old homes, churches and schools.

The liquor store was formerly the train station with original lights, benches, etc

This was my dad's childhood home (since renovated) and I learned something new when we visited: it was actually his mother's family home too.  So my grandmother and my dad grew up in this house!

A weird tornado-y cloud!

Now we're in Alberta again.  Full circle, we're almost home!

An interesting sight: a wind turbine blade being transported down the highway.

By the time we got to Medicine Hat, about a four hour drive from Moose Jaw, the weather had changed from 13 C and raining to 36 C and sunny!  

SO HOT!

Toby grew up in Medicine Hat so it was his turn to take us on a tour of his childhood places.  This is Medicine Hat college where he did one year of engineering before transferring to the U of C where we met.

Quick but necessary playground stop.  (Still. so. hot!)

Toby's Elementary school

Medicine Hat has a lot of murals downtown.

This is a record store where Toby's mom used to own a book store.  Toby said he would ride his bike from his house to the shop as a kid.

What is this "CD" you speak of?

Toby's childhood home

Gotta stop for ice cream!  Especially when the place is a childhood favourite like "Swirls"

After our tour we headed out of town to where Toby's parents had once been building a house on an acreage.  After they bought the property it was discovered that there were abandoned mines under the ground making the land unstable.  The government purchased their property and sold the house (which was later purchased by someone else and moved. It was featured on one of those reality TV shows about moving houses, which was very interesting).  

We wanted to see what was left.  Answer: barely any evidence that a house had once been there.  The foundation had been filled in.  But that view!  We had to go back and see it one more time.

Our final stop of the day was at Red Rock Coulee to check out the beautiful, otherworldly round orange rocks that dot the landscape.

This explains (sort of) how they are formed.

After all the fun and excitement of Medicine Hat we finally had to start heading for the Crowsnest Pass area where Toby's parents currently live.  The prairie landscape has its own stark beauty, especially at sunset. We can tell we're getting close to home

Big orange moon

We didn't arrive to Chris and Sue's until 11:00 PM but it was worth it to see all of the special places we stopped along the way!

Stay tuned tomorrow to see if the hutch made it to it's final destination in one piece!