Todd’s sister Wanda has a small 6-acre parcel of land in central Alberta and we scheduled a weekend visit up there on our way to Big Valley Jamboree. Its been on the books for at least 6 months and it was time to go! We were meeting most of the family up there for campfires, games and touring around. I had never been to “camphill” before, but Todd was fairly certain that poor Ruby would get a run for her money trying to make it up the hill to the camp spot. So this is how it turned out: Pulling Ruby up camphill (rumble.com)
Wanda and Brent bought the land only a few months before Brent passed away. There is a lovely memorial for Brent under a shady tree overlooking the camp. Wanda has been working hard on her own to turn it into a little oasis. We had a great time with everyone playing bones, touring old farm land, talking with cows, overeating and lots of laughs! We decided to stay an extra day and toured through Alix, AB. It was very hot so we stopped by the local drink stand where two young entrepreneurial girls were counting change at the lemonade stand, before we did a very HOT walking trail hike around Alix lake, followed by a drink at the local Alix Hotel. And just like that, the weekend was over and it was time to move on. Here are a few pics of the weekend: Camphill (rumble.com)
Our next stop was at a fabulous, family run, RV park in Wetaskiwin across from the Reynolds museum. For anyone who has a big rig, I highly recommend the About Us | Westview RV Park | Wetaskiwin. The rates are very reasonable, the park has a huge playground for kids, a walking trail, a fishing hole and its across the street from a museum. You can watch the canola turn yellow while enjoying your campfire! We were only there for about 24 hours when I noticed that we had 6 little stow away visitors from camphill on board! Luckily we installed 2 extra mouse traps inside Ruby, so the little critters didn’t last long. Here’s an overview of our camp spot: Wetaskiwin Camp Spot (rumble.com) The weather was perfect the first two days, but a bit windy on day 3.
Checking out the canola
We had our bikes in tow, so when we unpacked them on the first day and started to ride, we were asked by the local trio of boys if we wanted to join their bike club called the ‘scorpion angel’s’? Of course we do! We were more like honorary members of course. We biked a lot over the next 3 days into town – its only 2 km. We even biked to the leisure centre on the other side of town, for a dip in the pool to cool off from the hot day. Day 2 was set aside mostly for the Reynolds Museum. You know how we like a museum and Todd has been wanting to take me here for at least 5 or 6 years. If you have never heard of it before, here is a link: Reynolds-Alberta Museum | Reynolds Museum. We arrived around noon and they were taking a group of people out on the “extra” guided warehouse tour, so we paid our fare and jumped in with that tour. The guide was very knowledgeable and the warehouse had SO MANY vehicles in addition to what was on show in the actual museum. The warehouse was 3 layers high of vehicles, farm tractors and airplanes in all various shapes of drivable to not so drivable fashion. Apparently there are at least 3 other warehouses throughout Alberta with the same quantity of vehicles – its crazy! The museum itself was setup for a 70’s flashback – every type of car we both had when we were growing up, it very awesome.
Very cool old cars and a bus to Stettler
This is not a winter car.
There is even a resource centre at Reynolds. If you have a favourite car or are trying to fix an old car, they have a massive catalogue room filled with old vehicle manuals and the original sales brochures. That was also very cool!
After three days, we saw all there was to see in Wetaskiwin for now. It was on to Camrose and Big Valley Jamboree! The lineup this year resulted in a sold out concert and sold out camping, which is record breaking for this 20+ year event! I was pumped to see all the great names – Dallas Smith, Morgan Wallen and Dierks Bentley along with all the other amazing groups like High Valley, Chase Rice, Chad Brownlee and Bailey Zimmerman. We landed in our usual camp spot at Heartland 1125, but first we had to mow the lawn and get the spot ready! Luckily Dan brought his electric mower, but even if he didn’t there were other people advertising that they would mow our spot for $20! Didn’t take long and we were all setup for the next 4 nights / 5 days – hopefully the liver will survive! We had a fairly big group, 3 buses and 4 tents of people. Since its our 5th year attending, our crew is a well oiled machine to ensure we eat, hydrate, have fun, sleep and get to the concerts relatively on time for 4 days! The weekend did not suck! Here are some highlights: BVJ Highlights (rumble.com) This is an overview of what the campground looks like from the top of Ruby: Camping overview (rumble.com) Here is a look at Todd’s famous dance moves (with Madison) during High Valley on Friday night: Todd’s Famous dance moves and Mads (rumble.com) I took ALOT of video of all the great concerts, and most of the video’s were not great! I am by no means a “great” video-splicer (is that even a word anymore?), this is the best I could do:
- Thursday night kick off party with Chad Brownlee, the closest we ever got to a stage: Forever’s got to start somewhere (rumble.com)
- Friday night headliner Dallas Smith: Dallas Smith (rumble.com)
- I’m missing Morgan Wallen video’s – I was too stunned to take any!
- Sunday night headliner Dierks Bentley: Dierks Bentley (rumble.com)
In my retirement I’m going to have to learn the steel guitar or banjo, I just love the sound!
The weather was perfect this year – no random tornado warnings, hail storms, flash flooding or other weird mother nature events…..so we will take that as a win! And then it was all over, wasn’t that a party! See you next year!
We had one last weekend in August where it was going to still be warm in Alberta, so we loaded Ruby up and headed out to the lake!
Perched at Ghost Lake
Within hours of our arrival, we were out on the lake with the “kids” and waiting for the rest of our crew to arrive. The lake was definitely cooler than 4 weeks prior, as it is a mountain fed reservoir lake, so some of us had to pull out the skinny suits! The weekend was basically eat, float, drink, swim, repeat. What more can you ask for a hot summer day. We also had a few new visitors for the day who all brought such awesome snacks like dates from Saudi Arabia and Argentinian shrimp that tasted like Lobster! Yes i said dates! There are 2 foods in this world that I will NOT eat and that is breaded liver and dates. Shout out to Chelsea from Black Dog Bakery | Black Dog Bakery for bringing her sister Danielle with the dates, who has now changed my mind – they were delish! and to Anita from North Sea Fish & Farms | Shop Seafood, Beef, Chicken, and more! for the amazing shrimp!
We listened to some music, played games, jumped off ropes and trees, sat around the fire and had a grand ole time! Here is all the evidence of a fun time at the lake Ghost lake summer fun (rumble.com) And then it was over and we all packed up. Time to go (rumble.com)
Thanks for following along with us and Ruby as she takes us on such fun trips. She is going to be parked for a while, because she needs some interior renovations and a few upgrades over winter. She will be all ready to go next spring and excited to tell all the stories!