Southern Alberta

I drove south of Calgary on Friday morning for South Country Fair, a festival which I was supposed to volunteer at. South Country Fair, in my mind, is the southern cousin of North Country Fair (no way, right?!?), and having enjoyed myself at NCF for the past three years in a row, I thought I'd give SCF a try. My friend Drewe from Edmonton was also going down there with his partner Jenny, so we were going to meet up as we'd missed each other at NCF this year.

SCF is set just outside the town of Fort Macleod, which is about 1.5 hours south of Calgary. On the way I passed Head-Smashed-in-Buffalo-Jump, a UN World Heritage Site which I'd been meaning to visit. As I approached the festival, I reread one of the emails I'd received from the volunteer coordinator (I know, I'm such a multitasker!). In it she mentioned that as a volunteer I could buy a $40 ticket to the festival. I must have overlooked this salient detail when I first read it because it caught me off guard this time. I thought it strange that I would have to pay to go to a festival while investing 8 hours as a volunteer. When I arrived, this was confirmed to me, and the $40 was presented as a discounted price for the ticket. If I'd wanted to get in for free, I would have had to put in 12 hours as a volunteer, something which hadn't been explained to me previously. I felt a bit bummed out even though this was my own omission. Additionally, I was informed that I would have to pay $30 to bring my camper onto the festival grounds. This venture would therefore set me back $70 and I would spend 8 hours standing at the gate, greeting people. I debated what to do, and came to the conclusion that the vibe I was feeling was not a positive one, and that I would prefer to skip the whole event. I didn't know any of the performers and the whole atmosphere was unfamiliar to me, so there weren't many benefits for me in staying, as far as I could see. I apologized and left, sending a very apologetic email to the volunteer coordinator. I hope they made things work without me.

Instead I drove back to Head-Smashed-in and got in for free after sweet-talking the ladies at the gate. The vistas were gorgeous and the 15-minute film informative, but I'm definitely glad I saved the $10 entrance fee as it didn't seem quite worth it.
After the tour I cracked a coconut and devoured it right in the parking lot. It was lovely. I want to eat coconut every day.

I then drove down to Fort Macleod, a lovely little town with a quaint turn-of-the-century garrison feel to it, something which they preserve for tourist purposes, I presume. It also bears the distinction of being the birthplace of Joni Mitchell and the set for several scenes from Brokeback Mountain and Passchendaele. I biked around for a bit, then continued on my way down to Lethbridge.

Lethbridge and Medicine Hat are two southern cities I'd been meaning to visit for a while, probably because they are some of the last places in Alberta which I hadn't seen yet.
Lethbridge is absolutely gorgeous and has a studious and affluent feel to it. I set up a slackline right as I got in, then went for pizza with some friends I'd met through Zeitgeist.  The next day was extremely windy, which is pretty normal for that city, it seems. I tried to cycle around but was discouraged by the gale-force winds. I did visit the farmers market and bought some bread and honey, but then I was done and packed up.

Next on my list was Medicine Hat, which is about 2 hours east of Lethbridge. This city, not much smaller in population than Windy City, was definitely underwhelming in comparison. There is barely a downtown to speak of, and it all feels somewhat desolate and sad. Even the people seemed unhappy. I did meet some lovely folk from couchsurfing, however, which was the highlight of my stay.
As per usual, I set up my slackline in a park and made some good progress on that front.
I decided to stay for one more night and head back to Calgary the next morning as I prefer to drive in daytime. The next day was dreary and eventually rain began to come down in spades, but I made it back to Calgary safely, in anticipation of some much-needed water immersion of my own.