Calgary Activities

 

The day after our tours in Banff National Park was a much-needed rest day and another day to enjoy the cooling rain showers.  As you can see from the pictures, God provided another display of His marvelous goodness to us on this trip.  What a rainbow.  Again, pictures do not provide the experience we saw.  The color was the most vivid I have ever seen in a rainbow with the added double rainbow that is clearly visible.

WOW and Double WOW!

Incredibly Beautiful

We used our day off to get things ready to move to Calgary and to restock our supplies at Wal-Mart.  I even worked up the energy to wash the rig since it had not been cleaned after our 2,000-mile march from Texas to Canada.  Canada Day is July 1^st, and every community has some sort of celebration planned.  We were going to go checkout the activities but decided to forego those plans due to being tired and having to move the next day to our Calgary destination.  Not to mention the sun doesn’t set low enough for fireworks until well after 10 PM in Canada.  Well to our surprise, after we had gone to bed, we hear fireworks and are able to watch through the bedroom window from our bed the local celebratory fireworks.  One of the best front row viewing of fireworks ever.

We moved from our RV park in Cochrane, Alberta (slightly Northwest of Calgary) to McMahon Stadum in Calgary to join the fellow travelers on the Fantasy Tour of the Calgary Stampede and Glacier National Park.  This is a 14-day extravaganza with something almost every day.  Days 1-6 find us in Calgary followed by days 7-10 driving and visiting nearby Waterton, Alberta, Canada and finally days 11-14 driving and visiting West Glacier National Park in good ol’ USA.  By the way, Waterton is the Canadian equivalent and extension of the US Glacier National Park.  The US/Canada border is in between the parks and is readily visible.

Calgary, We are here!

Back to the chronological sequence, our first night with the group involved an introductory dinner followed by information and a ceremony.  We were handed playing cards upon entering the dining room.  We were instructed to find the couple that matched our card and we had to interview each other to introduce each other to the entire group.  Our couple was from Berlin, MA, John and Cindy, who were traveling with another three couples on the tour.  The dinner was great, and we got to know each other very well during our time together.

Entire Fantasy Tour Group

After dinner we received detailed information about the activities ahead of the group along with instructions on using public transportation in Calgary.  Most of our travel was by bus.  We did use the C-Train to move from the stadium to downtown Calgary and back again.  Then the highlight of the entire evening was the history of Calgary and the Calgary Stampede followed by the solemn ceremony whereby we were bestowed with honorary Calgarian citizenship.  Of course, followed by the White Hat presentation, which is the required dress for the parade and stampede.

Looks pretty spiffy and we ARE the good guys!

The next morning we traveled by bus to Calgary Tower for breakfast then were given free time to roam Rope’s Square a few blocks from the tower.  To return to our rigs at the stadium we had to use the C-Train for the return trip.  Rope’s Square is full of shops, eateries and assorted entertainment for the masses.  It is several blocks long and the streets are closed to vehicular traffic.

View from the tower of Stampede grounds

Up there was breakfast in the revolving restaurant

After walking off the breakfast meal and feasting our eyes on the many wonders in Rope’s Square we headed for the train and the stadium.  Need to rest up for the next big day ahead.  Tomorrow morning’s big kick-off Stampede Parade.  See you then.

First C-Train ride to Stadium