flowers

As previously mentioned the hanging baskets were astonishing, lovely and made the ones on our deck look really puny.  They must hire floral artists to create and groom these examples.  They are found in front of stores, in out door restaurants, everywhere.

Calgary Stampede

Sunday

Before heading to Calgary, we had a few more scenic stops to make.  The first was at Bow Falls—not a really high falls, but wide and very lovely.  I have a video of the falls in action, but it looses lots when you can't hear the noise of the water rushing.

The second stop was an overlook where we could get a good view of the Banff Springs Hotel--- our "original" tour in August, which didn't "make" included a night in this huge old establishment.

Our last scenic stop was to see the Hoodoos—rock fingers left after erosion.  These were small—We have some in US Nat’l parks that are larger because they are of a harder stone and resist erosion better.

The area on the way to Calgary is a little like Cloudcroft/Ruidoso, New Mexico—no super high mountains, but lots of trees.

The Winter Olympics in 1988 was one of the few which was a commercial success and some of the facilities are still used for training purposes.

Calgary has about 1.2 million people and they also have a Smart Car rental operation.    We went up in the Calgary Tower to get an overview of the city and the fairgrounds.

Skyline of Calgary from Calgary Tower

Stampede Park is made up of 233 acres and reminds me of  the Texas State Fair grounds.  It has lots more food booths, but not as many permanent buildings.  I don’t know how many acres TSF grounds encompass—I’ll have to look that up.  (FYI--Texas State Fair grounds covers 277 acres)

Our brochure bragged about the “exotic” foods available including donut grilled cheese, donut ice cream pop,  foot-long pizza dog and the most interesting, lobster corn dog.  We looked and looked for the lobster thing and never found it.  Either they didn’t have them at all, or the booth had closed and gone home since we were there the last day the fair was open.   We did see friend green beans, chocolate dipped bacon, buffalo barbecue  and lots of the usuals i.e. giant turkey leg, the Canadian specialty poutine.  

We had some brisket barbecue which had a good taste, but was shredded rather than sliced making it stringy and harder to eat.

Beginning Festivities 

We had tickets for the Chuck wagon Races which is a part of the usual rodeo events here.   We saw 9 heats of 4 chuck wagons each.  It would have been nice to know the “rules” because the winning decision entailed the wagon and its “outriders” (two for each wagon).  My pictures are blurry because of the speed the wagons were going.

They were going FAST

I’m guessing the winner was decided by the best time around the track and something about the outriders.  Anyway when the 9 races were done, awards were given for best newcomer  (($3,000)  and the grand prize wining team for all 10 nights received $100,000 and a trophy and belt buckles.  
A young singer was interviewed having just won $10,000 in a national t.v. singing competition.  He was being honored because at 19 years of age he had donated his entire prize for the benefit of a homeless shelter.

There was sort of an intermission while the area for the stage show was put into place.  N and another man from the group decided they’d had enough and got a taxi back to the hotel.  

They missed a marvelous show!  Singers, dancers, history of Canada,  rap, ballet, a review of famous entertainers from Canada- some of the ones mentioned were Gordon Lightfoot, Hank Snow, Shania Twain, Celine Dion, Anne Murray and Justin Bieber and of course, William Shatner.  

There were acrobats- one hanging from a huge wire eagle, another using a metal cube for his feats.   And basketball wizards.  A song about the Northern Lights featuring ladies in Aurora-esque dresses suspended over the stage.

Two families received their Canadian citizenship on stage which bothered me a bit.  A citizenship ceremony seems a little personal to be used as entertainment.  Oh Well, that’s my personal opinion.

Kids sang and danced and the firework display was spectacular and deafening.  Our tour guide told us that there would be 100,000 people in attendance, I think he exaggerated somewhat, but the crowd leaving the grandstands has huge.  We walked back to the bus (I got a little turned around, but found myself) and with our bus driver, Dan’s expertise and patience, finally made it back to the hotel just after midnight.

A good ending to a very interesting tour.   We fly out tomorrow at 2:30, so we can sleep in a bit.

Lake Moraine and Lake Louise

Saturday—

As we left Banff for our daily adventure, Tom, the tour guide, told us about  a herd of elk who made its way thru the town frequently.  They didn’t bother too many people—a few tourists who got too close, but the locals knew to leave them alone.  Then the herd began following and harassing the school children on the way to and from school, so the herd was relocated to a place where they would not be around people.

The fire I have mentioned in the last 2 posts is still burning, but it is going away from the town of Jasper and is being “managed” whatever that means.  Controlled or “managed” burns eventually make the forest healthier.  There is a pine beetle here that kills trees and the burn eliminates these dead and infected trees and allows new healthy trees to grow from infested areas

I keep hearing CPR- which doesn’t mean a lifesaving technique, but Canadian Pacific Railroad.

Some of the roads we’ve been on today are closed in the winter and sometimes at night in the summer. 

The wildlife commission builds overpasses over major roads to give the wildlife a chance to cross to the other side without endangering their lives.  These overpasses look like a continuation of the vegetation with dirt on top and  native plants put there. 

We stopped at Lake Moraine where there is an enormous pile of rock and some of our group  got to the top.  The view from there was supposed to be spectacular, but N and I stayed on the trail around the lake, which seemed kind of ordinary (by Canadian standards).

Pic from Pat Knowles, thanks for sharing.

Next we visited Lake Louise (named for Queen Victoria’s 4th daughter, Alberta Louise)  There is an iconic Chateau  (hotel) here that has grown and enlarged since the early part of the 20^th century. 

Back side of Chateau

The Chateau burned at one point and was rebuilt and enlarged and enlarged until it became the massive structure it is today.  I should have used my camera’s panoramic function to get a complete picture of the place, it is HUGE.  We walked through it and then walked around the lake.   

The landscaping is bright and inviting and I suppose I’ll never think of hanging baskets of flowers the same way again.  These are enormous and meticulously groomed.  Ours on the back deck in Arlington are truly puny.

N’s Kodak has a broken battery latch and sometimes the batteries don’t make good contact—we got some masking tape to hold the battery compartment closed.  We’ll make it til we get home, but I’m afraid it can’t be fixed, because Kodak went out of business a couple of years ago.  Maybe we can find a “fix-it” person who has spare parts. 

Stopped in a small tourist area past Lake Louise for some lunch.  Since we’re scheduled for Supper at 5:30, we had only ice cream for lunch, while others had sandwiches, salads, hot dogs, etc.

We spent a little time in Yo Ho National Park—Yo Ho means Wow—Hmm!

Stopped at a display about the spiral tunnel built for the train, back when they were used for freight in this area.  The original track was so steep that travel on them was dangerous and several engines were needed to get a load up the mountain and then  to keep them from plummeting down again.  The ingenious spiral design  is difficult to explain but rather like a  big underground  rail loop to give the train more time and less grade to make the trip safer.  (think switchbacks) With these tunnels the extra engines were not needed for pulling and pushing and “runaway” sidings weren’t needed as well.  As I said, really clever and innovative engineering.  Wish I had a good picture or diagram to show you, but alas.....

Back to Banff- we did a little shopping and met the group at the appointed Greek restaurant for supper.  Food was good- dessert, not so much—but that’s okay, we had ice cream earlier.

I have been trying to track my food (Weight watchers) but it hasn’t been particularly accurate and I’ve gone over my allotted points almost every day.  It is difficult when food choices are made for you, rather than choosing for yourself.  Also when I prepare a meal, I know how it was cooked, eating-out every meal, I have no way of knowing.   My goal on this trip was not to lose weight, but also not to gain.  I’ll find out how I did when I get back.

Tomorrow we don’t leave til 9am, we travel to Calgary, and go to the fairgrounds.  We have been told that there will be over 100,000 people at the Stampede tonite, which is our last “event” til we leave to come home.

“Most Scenic Road in the World”

Friday

So much beauty today-- we’re on overload!  The Ice Field, Glacier, Atabasca Falls, all the majestic mountains were just more than we could take in.

I always wondered about the strange name of the Banff Natn’l Park and  the explanation is simple--the two men who founded it were from Banfshire, Scotland.  And Jasper Hodd, a fur trader was the namesake for the other town we’ve visited.    As I mentioned yesterday, the Maligne fire was discovered a few hours after we were there- supposedly caused by lightening.   This morning the sky in that direction was grey and thick and had a nasty smoke smell.  As we moved away from Jasper, the air became clearer and we weren’t aware of smoky smells.

Our first stop was Atabasca Falls where we walked along the rushing water.  Pictures don’t do this phenomenon justice.  I did take video so you could experience the sight and sounds, but I've discovered that this blog doesn't support sound, so....

We learned some early Canadian history about the RCMP, about Metis Uprising, and lots of info about how Canada became a country and again how they became independent in the ‘30’s

Our big adventure for the day was walking on the Columbia Ice Field, Atabasca Glacier.  We had been told to dress warmly and in shoes with a good tread because of the slipperiness.  

Many people, however, were dressed for a picnic in shorts and sandals.  Those who know how cold I get can see from the pictures—I was prepared.   There was another tour bus of folks who began stripping down to bathing suits after they got on the glacier.

 Having walked on glaciers before, this one was different.  A staff member had road maintenance equipment running, clearing a spot for us to stand.  It was like standing on really crunchy snow.    We learned lots of terminology about glaciers such as moraine (piles of rock left behind by a glacier), Alpine zone (not much vegetation- too cold), cryocanite-I guessed at this spelling (atmospheric emissions on glacier which causes faster melting)  , blue ice (glacial ice is compressed snow under immense pressure), TerraBus (the vehicle that took us to the glacier- today cost $1.3 million each)   We all know that the ice fields and glaciers are melting quickly, but we were told that this one loses 30 feet per year and in 90 years this glacier will be gone.






We traveled with a group from the Univ. of Illinois and they had a group picture made in the area in front of the glacier.  A really friendly, welcoming group of people. 

After enjoying the glacier, we drove to a picnic area and had the lunch that we had ordered the day before.   Our eating spot was right beside the Saskatchewan River.   Later we stopped at the Peyto Lake and the Bow River. 

We’re at the Caribou Lodge for 2 nights (and oh, yeah, the bathroom has a carved caribou head on the wall)

As I said before the pictures that I will post here (a few days after returning) won’t do the amazing beauty of this area justice.  It is something to be seen in person to be believed.