Okanagan - Day 2

We left Lethbridge this morning and drove into the mountains. Our first stop was Frank, AB, which is a tiny town that is famous due to a landslide that occurred in 1903 when a huge part of the mountain decided to collapse.  The results of the landslide are still very visible today, as the highway goes right through a field of boulders and crushed rocks.

Just off the highway is a small interpretive centre, viewing areas and a path that takes you through the rocks.  The entire area was a hit with the kids and they loved the walk through the rocks.  Jonathan walked entirely by himself, uphill and down, and the only issue was that he tried to take six or so of the smaller rocks with him everywhere he went.  It was a good start to the actual vacation part of our vacation.

After getting everyone back in the car, we drove to Sparwood, BC, which is famous for the giant dump truck that sits beside the tourist centre.  The dump truck is extremely huge and one of the main things that the boys wanted to see on this trip.  Jonathan has already associated vacations with a "giant dump truck"!  While the boys ran around the dump truck, I quickly bought lunch and then booked a tour through the local coal mine, as Sparwood is a mining town.

After lunch, we boarded a bus for our tour of the coal mine.  The tour of the mine was extremely cool.  From the entrance of the mine, we ascended 3000 feet to the top of the mountain, where we stopped to watch a shovel fill a continuous line of dump trucks.  The boys loved that part, though they were too short to see extremely well, which meant that we had to hold them so that they could see the dump trucks drive by.  I told Sandra that despite my hatred of driving anything bigger than a car, I think I would love to drive one of those huge dump trucks - it actually looks fun.

The bus stopped one more time at an abandoned mining pit, which they were in the process of refilling with the rock that was separated from the coal mined elsewhere.  Essentially, once the pit was filled enough to get rid of the water at the bottom, they were going to level it off and replant grass and trees.  Apparently it only takes six years for the grass to start growing again, and twelve years for the area to support trees again.

Once the tour was over, we spent some more time at the giant dump truck, which included time cleaning the kids.  The ground we were walking on in the mine was made up of coal, and the kids were black - especially the younger two, who had spent a lot of time picking up rocks.  After that, we drove to Cranbrook, got a hotel room, went out for supper and then played in the pool, before putting everyone to bed.

Tomorrow we plan on visiting Fort Steele.