Westworld Alberta

reynolds-alberta museum, ascent xmedia/getty images S U M M E R 2 0 1 5 | W E S T W O R L D A L B E R T A 59 6 Steps to Road Trip Zen See to your car before departure for a journey that's as breezy as a rolled-down window on the open highway 1 De-winterize. First, don't forget to remove those winter tires. Their softer rubber is optimized for the cold tem- peratures of the winter months. Check your air filter to ensure it isn't clogged with sand or dirt, and pop the hood and take a close look at the hoses and belts for cracks or loose connections. 2 Get your battery checked. Heat can evaporate battery fluid, causing damage or a reduced lifespan. AMA's Bat- tery Service can come to you – or visit Lube City for service. 3 Top up fluids. Your car needs moisture as much as you do in hot weather. Top up the engine coolant, motor oil, transmission fluid, power-steering liquid and brake fluid before you hit the road. 4 Do a tire inspection. Look for wear and check air pressure – including the spare. "Under-inflated tires will blow with enough heat and pressure," says Rick Lang of AMA Driver Education. "Overinflated tires make less contact with the road and can be hazardous in heavy rain." 5 Check windows for hairline cracks and replace windshield wipers. Heavy summer rains can decrease visibility by up to 20 per cent, so it's a good idea to install brand-new wiper blades before you embark. 6 Pack emergency supplies. Even with proper mainte- nance, your car could still blow a tire or break down. So pack AMA's Emergency Roadside Kit, which comes loaded with essentials like booster cables, a multi-tool, a first aid kit and more ($90 members; $110 non-members). Also bring non-perishable food – and bottles of water for yourself, your passengers and your radiator. Banff Upper Hot Springs pool admission: Member price: from $19 YOU SAVE: $3 A $30 purchase at the Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies gift shop: Member price: from $27 YOU SAVE: $3 Half-day family whitewater rafting on Kananaskis River with Inside Out Experience: Member price: from $261 YOU SAVE: $65 Family entry to the Reynolds-Alberta Museum: Member price: from $27 YOU SAVE: $3 WHEELS OF PROGRESS Wetaskiwin's Reynolds- Alberta Museum DRIVE TIME From Edmonton: 1 hour From Calgary: 2 hours 24 min Long before Canadian Pickers, the reality show about hawk-eyed collectors who scour the country's garages for salable antiques, there was Stan Reynolds. e late Wetaski- win car dealer, aviator and philan- thropist spent most of his life acquiring rare automobiles, air- planes, steam engines and tractors. But Reynolds picked for posterity, not profit: "Mr. Reynolds felt that the machines other people were throwing away needed to be preserved for future generations, especially pieces with Alberta or Canadian connections," says Cynthia Black- more of the Reynolds-Alberta Museum. He opened a museum in 1955, and in the 1980s donated his collections to the Alberta government, to be housed in a new Wetaskiwin facility. Today, the museum has 450 vehicles, 101 airplanes and more than 5,000 pieces of agricul- tural equipment – only a small per- centage of which are normally on display. But starting July 4, a new exhibition, "Stan Reynolds: the Original Canadian Picker," will bring some of Reynolds' most unique trea- sures – like a 1935 Ford 48 DeLuxe Convertible Coupe and a 1920 Canadian 14-28 tractor – out of storage and into the display lights. Open daily, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Save 10% on admission to the Reynolds- Alberta Museum. AMARewards.ca/ Reynolds

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