Second Day shooting in the badlands

When Rob and I got up on Saturday morning it was raining again.  It was obvious that with this fresh rainfall, on top of what we got the day before, that hiking in the badlands would be just about impossible.  Instead we decided to check out some of the small towns in the area.  We decided to head up to Hanna, northeast of Drumheller.  There is a cool old railway roundhouse here that I have photographed a number of times in the past.  When we first set out we were optimistic that things might improve as the sky began to lighten, and the rain was just spitting. But, by the time we got up to Hanna conditions had deteriorated and it was raining heavily.  We stopped and checked out the old roundhouse.  A local historical society has been formed and they are not only collecting funds, but also attempting to get historical designation for the building.  It has now been secured and the site somewhat cleaned up.  It was all posted with "No Trespassing" signs so access was not really available to us.  We took a few snapshots and then, in consideration of the signs, the rain, and the mosquitos, we moved on.

We continued on to the town of Rowley.  By the time we arrived here the weather conditions were finally beginning to improve.  The skies lightened and the rain turned to just a sporadic drizzle.  This town was used in the filming of the movie "Bye Bye Blues" about 25 years ago.  A few of the original buildings were used, and some others were built specially for filming.  The town has since tried to promote itself as a tourist stop.  There is a small museum set up in the old schoolhouse, and the grain elevators and the train station  have been restored.  The view cameras finally came out by the middle of the afternoon and we spent the rest of the day here photographing.  We focused our attention on a couple of old barns and an adjacent fence covered with hops.  We also spent some time exploring some old farm machinery that had been put on display.  My first sheet of film of the day was exposed around 3:00PM in the afternoon and we continued shooting here until around 6:00PM.  After that we headed back to East Coulee and put together a barbecue dinner that evening.  

The next morning we packed up and Rob hit the road back to British Columbia.  I hung around the valley for a while and Frank and I spent the morning scouting around town and taking a few snapshots for our website.  After lunch I packed up the trailer and hit the road back home.