My mother was visiting us for a couple of days while she was on vacation.  We took advantage of one of my mid-week days off to go for a drive and check out some sights south of Calgary back on May 16.

Our first stop was the Chuckwagon Cafe in Turner Valley.  Always a favorite of ours for breakfast when we’re passing through.  Since we arrived later in the morning I decided to try a lunch offering for a change of pace.

After “breakfast”, we carried on to the Turner Valley Gas Plant where I took the opportunity to shoot some drone footage of this most unique and interesting location.

From there we moved on to High River and, more specifically, the Museum of the Highwood.  It is really good to see that they are still going strong, even after the fire of July 2010 (wow, that long ago already??) and the floods of 2013.  The big exhibit was a collection of artifacts from the TV show “Heartland“, which seemed to be attracting a lot of attention while we were there.  Certainly that was my mother’s main reason for wanting to visit this little museum.

Another highlight for me in High River is the Wales Theatre, which also has recovered from the devastating floods of 2013 and is once again showing films, just like it has since 1927.

On our way back home we made two more quick stops.  The first was in Aldersyde where I had to check on the leaning church to make sure it was still in place, which it was.

And, finally, a drive by the ranch used as the main set for Heartland.  Located near Millarville, it is a privately-owned property and all you can really see from the public roadway is the barn.  I first discovered this location thanks to Geocaching, long before I had ever even seen an episode of the show.  We weren’t the only people who were there checking out the scenery, so I suspect the little dead-end road gets more than its share of traffic from curious fans.

So, that’s it for now.  Time for me to go to work so I can afford to buy gas to do more touring this summer.