PINCHER CREEK – DAY 6

70 miles today, heading back towards the west, out of the cattle country and into the coal mining country. 

Visited the Frank Slide where the mountain suddenly came down because of the coal mines underneath and buried 90 people in the town of Frank.  Stumbled onto this log house being built for shipment to Yellowstone.  The two Pat’s darn near bought one.

Then onto the Bellevue Coal Mine, where we all donned hard hats with miners lamps for a trek into the mine.  This was one cold place, 34 degrees F in the mine.   And just for fun, they had everyone turn off their lights, now that is really black. 

This was our guide in the mine.  We didn’t have miners that looked like that when I worked in a mine.

In the afternoon, we returned to the Heritage Acres for a BBQ and a “barnyard cruiser” demonstration, which is really a synonym for “model T races”.  Lots of fun, group of guys all got together and decided to build T racers from all their junk parts.  So some are real elementary and some were pretty sophisticated.   All are stock powered.   They ran them around a dirt path two at a time, lots of dust and noise.  Crowd loved it.  That is the pace car in front.

And this cool rusty parts racer made ingenious use of all Model T parts to build it.

They fed us twice today, lunch buffet in Crowsnest, and then a BBQ by Okotoks Ford at the Heritage Acres.  We are definitely well fed.  Dig the BBQ trailer.  The grill is on the back, the tanks are under the hood.  All the supplies are hauled in the box.  These guys up here definitely have time on their hands in the winter time.