We were up early and our first stop was for, you guessed it, COFFEE!
There was a Tim Horton's right by the hotel so we stopped for coffee and breakfast sandwiches.
It was so nice out that we stood outside to eat.
Then we were off on our Heartland tour adventure.
Downtown Calgary off in the distance there.
It looks kind of small from here.
We were being total tourists and got out to take a picture with the High River sign.
My Honey & I.
Next stop - Maggie's Diner.
They do some of the filming here for Heartland.
It is not a real store, just a set and you aren't able to go inside but it's still really cool to see.
A lot of scenes take place in this little alley way too.
The murals on the wall are cool.
They've done a great job in making it look very authentic.
My Uncle A is a HUGE Heartland fan so he thought this was pretty great.
Just checking things out.
There was a little store in the back that sold home made ice cream and it was open so we had to check it out.
It is also one of the stops in the Self Guided Heartland tour.
This is the back door though, we had to walk around to the front.
Through the alley way was another stop on the self guided Heartland tour, the chalk wall.
There is a bucket of chalk there for people to use.
Mom got in on the fun.
Left her mark.
My Honey left his mark too - isn't he romantic?
What a cute little street.
Evelyn's ended up being more than just ice cream.
We weren't overly hungry so decided to just have desserts because they looked so good.
Each booth had these jukeboxes and they actually worked.
We picked a few songs to listen to.
My Honey tried the bourbon pecan pie with their signature ice-cream, Medicine Tree.
The bourbon flavor was really strong in the pie, super good.
Mom went with the strawberry rhubarb pie with rhubarb crumble ice cream.
They didn't have my first choice, cheesecake, so I opted for a cinnamon roll.
It was really good, soft & doughy, just how I like them.
We headed back toward the High River museum and passed through the alley by Maggie's Diner again.
These murals on the wall looked like real windows at first glance.
More pictures of Maggie's.
We checked out another spot from the self guided tour.
Olive & Finch.
I love these little towns that have these old fashioned downtown areas.
They are so quaint and charming.
We walked around a bit before we found the High River Museum.
Museum of the Highwood.
They had some of the costumes from some of the episodes.
The green dress was Amy's prom dress and the pink pantsuit was Georgie's from a horse show she was in.
They look so tiny, hard to believe people could actually fit in them.
This saddle was in the Miracle Rider episode.
They even had the replica doll house that was in a few of the episodes.
A waitress uniform from Maggie's diner.
Amy's prom dress up close.
Mom was really interested too - she is also a big fan of the show as am I.
There was a corner dedicated to film.
Movies are big out here and all of these had scenes that were shot in this part of Alberta.
It is beautiful country.
There is an old rail car outside the museum that they've converted to a restaurant.
We weren't hungry at all so didn't go in but I'd love to go back and try it out sometime.
We left there and headed back to the truck and had to pass Maggie's Diner again and when we did, there was a guy outside of the door just locking up.
My Uncle asked if we could go inside to have a look and turns out the guy was a set designer from the show and he said sure and let us inside.
How lucky was that?
Proof that it never hurts to ask.
My Uncle thought that was just great.
I was so happy for him and for all of us really, not everyone gets to see this.
I think Mom and Auntie A were loving it too.
They really go all out with the detail.
Love the old wagon wheel light fixture.
It looks so real, like you could just sit down and order up some food.
My Uncle later said that this was the highlight of the whole trip for him.
We talked to the set designer and asked if he could give us any other locations where they film that would be worth checking out and he told us about a nearby tractor museum.
Another cool mural in High River.
Next we headed to the tractor museum.
They are setting this building up next door to look like a real old fashioned gas station.
Our sweet ride for the next few days.
The museum had these cool kid cars hanging from the ceiling.
I wonder where the found them - I would love to have one.
This museum is actually a private collection that belongs to four men.
They put it together and set it all up here so other people could enjoy seeing it too.
There was a lot of cool stuff in there.
Another awesome kids car.
K checking out one of the old tractors.
Just look at all those tractors.
Those signs alone must be worth a fortune.
Some of the tractors were pretty old.
They had a little kid size tractor too.
My Honey was loving it.
So was my Uncle.
Being a farmer, he works with this type of equipment so no surprise there.
This old combine didn't even have a cover over some of the moving parts, that would have been dangerous.
Boy how things have changed.
More tractors.
I think everyone enjoyed checking it out.
Just so much to see every where you look.
I must say, it was the cleanest, most neatly organized museum like this that I've ever seen.
Very impressive.
You'd never lose this one out in the field.
This looks like an old guy.
They took these old sewing machines and put wheels on them.
I thought they were little tractors at first.
Check out the mini wringer washer.
Everything here is so clean and in such great condition.
The Heinz Beans truck!
There was even a coco cola car.
The guys went and checked out some of the other stuff they had outside.
We piled back into the van so we could head out to our next destination.
Those mountains always look so pretty off in the distance.
We had to hit up the Longview Jerky shop.
I think it's a must stop place if you are passing by.
We each got a bag of jerky.
I love the Original but I tried the Teriyaki that my cousin got and I think that's my new favorite.
My Honey got some pepperoni sticks too.
My mama.
Next we headed to Anchor D Outfitting.
It's a ranch and the Self Guided Heartland tour blog post mentions that you may be lucky and see Jack's horse.
Spoiler Alert - he wasn't there.
We had a warm welcome when we got there.
What a big baby he was.
He latched on my leg and just wanted all the belly rubs.
My Honey obliged.
This guy was having a lovely lazy day.
It was a real nice place.
The owner came out to talk with us and he was super friendly.
They do trail rides, nothing less than 2 - 3 hours though and you have to book in advance.
You can even stay for a few days, they have cabins that you can rent.
Even though we weren't going to do the trail ride, the owner invited us to look around the property.
That was so nice of him.
There were lots of big farm dogs roaming around and they were so friendly.
That's the owner there.
It was nice of him to just let us check out his property.
He even took us inside to show us his trophies - you can do hunting trips with them too.
We got to talking and turns out the logs in his house came all the way from Swan Hills.
They were from a fire there about 20 years ago.
They were all charred up and that part had to be shaved off but they look just gorgeous now.
Check out the view from their front window.
They had this great rocking chair on their back porch.
He said there were a bunch of horses just on the other side of this field and we could go see them if we wanted to so we headed over there.
This is the back side of his place.
We all started walking over there but it was quite a bit further of a walk than we first thought.
There they are.
My brave Honey was leading the way.
Mom and Auntie A stayed back a the gate to this field and just the four of us went on to see the horses.
There were so many of them.
Some of them were up on the hill in the trees.
They were friendly and came right over.
My Honey made friends right away.
I think my Uncle wanted to meet every single horse.
The horses weren't fazed by us in the least.
Such beautiful country.
They all wanted to come over and say hi.
Too bad we didn't have anything to give them, it didn't seem to matter though, they wanted to check us out too.
They all started coming over to see what was up.
My Honey was just making friends with all of the horses.
I left them to visit with the horses and I went back to check on mom and Auntie A.
Mom was tired so we headed back to the van.
On the way, we met these two lady riders.
They were just out riding the horses, getting them ready for people.
One was from New Zealand.
What a job huh?
Just ride horses around this lovely country side to prepare them to be trail riding horses.
She told us to come over and say "hi" to her horse but we couldn't get that close, he got a little spooked.
Guess he's not as used to people as all the others were.
After the ranch, we took a drive by Millarville's Farmer's Market and Race Track where they film some Heartland scenes.
My Honey & I went to the Christmas Farmers Market there a couple years ago and it was great.
We also looked for the church where Lou got married but we didn't end up finding it.
We hit up quite a few of the spots on the Self Guided Heartland tour and we had a great time but now it was time to head back to Edmonton.
We get on the train tomorrow at 9:30 and I think we are all looking forward to it.
We found a spot in Calgary to stop and have some supper.
Phoenix Grill
I had the Forbidden Rice Bowl
It was full of good stuff but very filling and I wasn't able to finish.
I think everyone enjoyed their meals, aside from the fries - they were very heavy handed with the salt though and they were basically inedible.
My Honey had the seafood linguini.
It was a great meal - I''m glad we found it.
Then we were back on the road and off to Edmonton.
We dropped everyone off at the hotel and checked in then My Honey and I went to drop the rental van off.
I just could not find the place - we drove by it several times and I was getting very frustrated but we did eventually find it.
We caught a cab back to the hotel and hit the hay.
Today was Baby F's other grandma's birthday so she sent her this sweet birthday wish.
I almost didn't recognize her with the wet hair!
That is all for today, until next time, be happy!
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