61 Day Alaska and Calgary Stampede Caravan: Day 4-7

July 15-18, 2016

Day 4

Today was a 175 mile travel day, we decided to travel with our new fulltime friends John and Theresa Neff. We left the park around 9:30 and headed to Nanton Alberta where we toured the Nanton Lancaster Society Bombadeer Museum, both John and Theresa are retired from the Air Force and with Dave's interest in these types of museums it was something we all could enjoy for a few hours.

 

We knew the parking at the museum wouldn't fit the rv's so we had stopped at a Flying J just down the road, it was easy enough for our friends to unhitch their toad and drive us all over. After the museum we had a great lunch at the restaurant (Humpty's) attached to the Flying J, great food and much better than expected. John and Theresa got their toad hitched back up and we were soon on our way to the Cochrane Alberta where we would be staying for 4 nights.

Bow Rivers Edge RV Park is a nice clean park, sites are adequate size and ours has 30 amp service with water and sewer. It's close to a Safeway, Walmart and Canadian Tire all great for stocking up on whatever you need.

A travel meeting outlining what is in store for the next 3 days at 5:30 then home and early to bed as we are once again leaving at 7:30 in the morning.

Day 5

Our 7:30 departure put us in to Rope Square in time to enjoy a bacon pancake breakfast. Seems during Stampede time a bunch of businesses get together and provide free bacon pancakes, one pancake a person at a time but you can get in line again and again at the same vendor or try a variety of vendors.

Dave and Theresa got hitched up to see how much they could pull, 222 pds was their best pull.

Dave getting "branded"

Interesting sculptures  that we later found out were wind breaks. 

Our next stop was the Glenbow Museum, their mission is to celebrate and share the history, creativity and beauty of western Canada.

My personal favorite rooms was a temporary exhibition, Kaleidoscopic Animala by Paul Hardy. It was an exhibition examining how animal imagery and symbolism influenced human creativity across time and cultures.

Our last stop of the day was the Calgary Stampede. We had tickets to the afternoon rodeo, an exciting afternoon filled with lots of action. It was cloudy and rainy, thankfully our seats were under cover. This was wildcard day, the final time cowboys had a chance to qualify in events for tomorrows finals.

By far the funniest event, the kids wild pony riding event.

Day 6


Today didn't start as early, we were going to see the finals and the finale extravaganza and it would be a really late day so the bus didn't leave until 11:45am. I put the morning to good use getting the last blog post up and getting caught up till today on this post.

We once again had tickets to the afternoon rodeo where all but the Chuckwagon Race finals were held. Each event had four people competing for a prize of $100,000. 

New friends Theresa and John who are also our traveling partners

 

A dinner buffet was at the Stampede Clubhouse after which it was time for the Chuckwagon Race finale, another $100,000 prize was on the line.

Then there were the fireworks to finish off Stampede week.

Day 7

Today our tour took us to Heritage Park Historical Village which is a living history museum. Exhibits span the early 1860s fur trade to the petroleum and automobile-dominated 1950s, their mission is to preserve Western Canada's history. The park first opened in 1964, the park now has a historical downtown, residences, First Nations encampment, a steam ship and railroad. Gasoline Alley Museum houses vintage cars and gasoline pumps. There is street theater in and around the town at various times, a great bakery and numerous shops. We had an enjoyable day exploring the town with our new friends John and Theresa.

We enjoyed our time in Calgary, it is a beautiful clean city that we would enjoy visiting again if we ever find ourselves in the area again.

Until next time...