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 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.
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| Skyline of Calgary from Calgary Tower |
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.
We had some brisket barbecue which had a good taste, but was shredded rather than sliced making it stringy and harder to eat.
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| 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.
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| They were going FAST |
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.
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