Strange things by the Road

The last stop for me in Montana before crossing back into Canada was in Eureka.  As a prelude of things to come, I noticed a really neat wood carving...

 

...and a really neat old style car parked outside of the grocery store.

A few minutes later, I crossed back into Canada.  Somehow the blue skies of Montana disappeared by Eureka and turned into a thick grey.  Typical.  But, at least the first roadside turnout had a view, as Canadian mountain turnouts do.

 

Canadian Rocky Mountain Scene

The clouds were low and heavy and gloomy, but at least they did not unleash any snow.  I was excited to see a road sign indicating mountain goats for the next 11 km.  Sadly these signs are a warning and not a promise, and despite craning my neck up mountainsides for  the next 11 km, there was not a goat to be found.

 



False promises of mountain goats

Next stop -- Fernie BC!  One of my favorite ski resorts

After a quick lunch at the Fernie subway, and enjoying the mountain view, it was back on the road

Things started to get strange just outside of Fernie.  I passed this sign, but didn't see any Pegasus either.

 

It wasn't too far down the road that I came across the famous giant green truck -- this sits outside of Sparwood, British Columbia.

It is called "The Titan," and was made for moving really really big stuff.

And of course, in case you were wondering, it is....

..."The Biggest Truck in the World!"  I have mentioned before how places in Canada like to have a world's biggest something...I was to pass by a few more on this trip.

The next place I stopped was at Frank, Alberta.  This is a story that has always fascinated me.  This small mountain mining town of Frank sat below Turtle Mountain and had about 600 residents.  At 4:10am on April 29th, 1903 Turtle Mountain came crashing down.  The rock seen in the photo below is an example of the size of rocks that crashed down onto the town of Frank.

Frank slide is a rare place that photos cannot do justice.  The amount of rock that fell on the town of Frank was approximately 90 million tons of rock.  That much rock could build a massive wall across Canada (1 metre wide and 6 metres tall, 6214 kilometres long).  Instead, it piled onto this location, massive stones piling on top of the site up to 150 feet deep.

A portion of Frank slide

Turtle Mountain, the mountain that gave away