Day 12 - Saturday, September 28

Even when they are sub-par, I always enjoy the sunrise as it signifies the beginning of a good day to me. In addition to its quality the sunrise was knocked down yet another notch by the less than desired somewhat disgusting foreground.

The downtown Walk of History was less than stellar. For starters Rocky Mountain House was one step away from being a ghost town. How it ever displayed enough interest to support a walk of history was beyond me. Lots of gyms and used clothing thrift shops, most all of them closed, made it easy to look then let's get out of here. 

The next phase was the National Historic Site. Located in a campground laced with short trails heading who knows where and highlighting who knows what. Without any information we couldn't really plan a course for some exercise so while Karen circled a short trail I looked up a final hurrah to hopefully save the day. One good thing was we crossed some interesting ground on our misguided quests. For example, I had no idea oil was an issue in this part of Alberta. 

The Alberta fall colours are still endearing to me so driving on uncrowded roads made it a good experience after all. 

The final straw was a proposed trip to Siffleur Falls. The trail in was allegedly four and a half MILES in and back but promised a suspension bridge. That all seemed well and good but we soon realized the Falls was 150 kilometres away then the same back again. That seemed a great distance to travel on a whim, again with no information about the hike. It looked like it would rain as well. That did it and we turned around about 50 kilometres in. It was along the highway we arrived on yesterday so there wasn't even anything to see we had not seen as close as yesterday.

I turned off the highway onto a dirt road for a short drive to Jackfish Lake. Once again the fall colours made it worth our while. The lake itself was small and virtually hidden by a relatively dense treeline. A lesson learned; every day cannot be perfect even on the best vacation.

😎