Longview

Stating the obvious- the views to Longview are long. This is Prairie country and whilst not as flat as Saskatchewan, it was a beautiful sunny day for a drive in the country. Around this time I discovered an old fascination becoming a full-blown appreciation. North American barns. Yes, just when you thought I'd become interesting. Hear me out though. In Australia we don't have barns. We have massive corrugated iron sheds which whilst functional and manage to blend in not badly to the landscape, do not offer much by way of interest to look at. Our blokes get in them and shear sheep in high temperatures. Then we let the sheep out and leave the wool inside. That's about it.

North Americans have barns. I'd seen them in the movies. Wooden ones that have rounded edges and are painted, often with a trim. I think they're great to see on the landscape. In the movies they are often more interesting than the farmhouses, which can look drab by comparison. In the movies interesting stuff happens in them. Children play in them. Animals give birth in storms. Teenagers make out in them, the showdown scene of many a thriller has been in them. Barns hold family secrets in the country. The Kents hide Superman's space capsule in a barn in the original movies. Barns are cool. I have now seen all sorts, including the run-down ones on a lean that will blow apart next winter.

So we headed on past the nodding donkeys and the barns and made it to Longview, about 20 minutes down the road from Black Diamond. It is home to the originally named Longview Jerky Shop http://www.longviewjerkyshop.com/ and the biker saloon.

In Aust we don't really dry or cure meat as much as they do in the Northern Hemisphere. It's not really been part of culture the way is has been for the North Americans. Essentially any meat can be turned into jerky. The process involves removing most of the moisture from the the meat. It can be dried plain or a variety of flavours and spices added. The Longview Jerky shop has at least 20 different flavours just in the beef. You can also get turkey, elk, deer and a variety of other meats. The result is a stringy sort of tough meat that can be left out of the fridge and does not need to be wrapped, though it should as to not dry out completely.

Laura and I bought a few packets between us to take back to Calgary. I like teriyaki and original but honey garlic is best.

I might as well say this now because when Laura reads this she is bound to "out" me. I did not open my packet for a few days to a week after, and when I did, I had not had dinner and I was blogging. Anyway, I made it through a 100gm pkt in a sitting because it was so tasty. Unfortunately I didn't know that according to the packet, that amount of beef jerky contains 92% of your daily allowance of sodium. I wasn't sick but gained a newfound respect from Laura for simply surviving the experience.

When we go hiking now she rations it out as a snack for fear that I will go overboard again. My reply, "I can stop (eating it) ANYTIME I want" and then stomping after her up a mountain.

We pretended to be lazy cowgirls outside the shop and then (reluctantly) passed the biker saloon to go to the outskirts of the National Park at Banff on the way home for a walk. I was hoping (and fearing) the early emergence of bears in the warm weather.