Stampeeeeeeeeede!

I'm throwing out a disclaimer here. The spacing in this post is NUTS. I tried and tried to fix it, but I don't know what's wrong with it, and honestly, it took so long to write that I don't even care anymore. I also use the word "here" a lot, so bear with me and don't judge me. Just enjoy the post for what it is :-)

This list item was one of the ones that I was most excited about. And it almost didn't happen. Thanks, Mother Nature. But in the end, it all worked out, and it was one of the best times I've had in my life. Here's the story of my journey to The Calgary Stampede.


My sister and her boyfriend came home for a visit the week before I went out to visit them. They flew back to Calgary 3 days before I did. Their trip to the East Coast was a bit more hectic than they'd planned, since neighbourhoods very close to them were being evacuated. Why, you may ask? Because in June and July of 2013 most of Alberta was hit with torrential rains, causing flooding and massive damage in many regions, including the stampede grounds. My list was in jeopardy.

Now, my sister's boyfriend is a bit of a news hound at times, so we were kept pretty up to date on what was going on. I was determined that everything would be OK, even when things looked their worst. My mother kept telling me that it would be OK for me to cross it off the list, even if Stampede didn't happen because I'd planned to do it and only a natural disaster had stopped me. I just refused to believe that it wouldn't happen. My motto became the same as the city of Calgary and the Stampede itself; Come Hell or High Water. With a lot of hard work and many, many volunteers, they got the grounds in order and the Stampede went on.


It's easiest just to take my trip day by day, and it'll be mostly in pictures. I flew out at 5:40am on July 4th from the Saint John airport. I live about 40 minutes away from the airport, so I was looking at a pretty early morning, and so was my dad, who was going to drive me. Luckily for us both, 29 offered to let me stay at his place and drive me to the airport. After less than a month together. What a great guy, huh?

So anyway, with the 3 hour time difference, I landed around 11:30am. My sister was working and her boyfriend and his friend were on a hike, so I was left to my own devices in the Calgary airport. I survived and got a cab to my sister's house, where I promptly got a snack, turned on the Food Network and took a nap. Once everyone got home we packed up and headed to Ranchman's, a local bar where my sister's (1st place!) softball team was having a party. This was my first glimpse of just how much country music and cowboy gear I would be experiencing over the next 11 days. Have you ever seen the movie "Cool Runnings" about the Jamaican bobsleigh team? You know the bar where they get into a fight? Well, that was Ranchman's. They've even decorated to commemorate!



I met some of my sister's Calgary friends and even picked up some free swag! Yup, that's right, a free Fireball shot and some Fireball lip gloss, which tastes surprisingly like the real thing, minus the booze.

Double rainbow all the way!! What does it mean?? It's so beautiful!













 
The next day we all woke up early, dressed up in our western wear (I even had a cowboy hat, thanks to my sister and her boyfriend) and headed to the Stampede parade.

The square dancers did a few demos along the way. I have a special place in my heart for square dancers because my grandparents used to square dance. And yes, you DO see the word "hootenanny" on the side of that float. 

Ok, so I forget where these guys were from, but the guys were dancing around barefoot, shirtless and in their underwear with nothing but these little loin cloths in front. In the back they were open. Most of the guys wore boxer briefs or briefs, but the guy on the left here, he wore a thong. Jogged down the streets of Calgary with his butt cheeks hanging out. THAT'S dedication.

This is Harry the Horse, the Stampede mascot.

The guy in the front waving is parade marshall, Chris Hadfield, Canadian, astronaut and pretty good singer.

I loved this.

It's a friggin' stagecoach, straight out of "Calamity Jane"!

It's the Staypuft Marshmallow Man. And some other characters who seemed to have missed the memo that this float was for characters from BOOKS, not movies. It was for a library for God's sake.

Official Stampede float.

It's Bonhomme!! For those of you who don't know, he's the mascot for the Montreal Winter Festival. He's big in Canada.

It's Astar. He can put his arm back on. You can't. So play safe.

It's the Calgary Tower. Yup, they have a plush costume in the image of a national landmark.

The float from the town of Vulcan, Alberta. Apparently, they petitioned to have the North American premiere of JJ Abrams' "Star Trek" movie there. They even had Leonard Nimoy endorse them. Would have been great, except that there's no movie theater in Vulcan, Alberta.

The driver of this tank was nuts. He kept swinging the gun around like crazy. It was a bit unnerving...

Dude is riding a bull down the street.

These giant puppet things were creepy. They kept coming into the crowd, trying to shake peoples' hands. The worst part was when they realized they were way behind their float and had to run to catch up. They kind of lumbered down the street with their long creepy arms flapping. Nightmarish...

After the parade we headed to the Stampede grounds to look around at the exhibits. Here we have a model from the agricultural college which helps students learn to help deliver calves. It was weird.

Here's a view of the grandstand, full of people from the side.

 Sheep!!!

 Interesting sheep facts!

 Baby pigs!

Baby chicks. Born the day before. Cutest. Thing. EVER.

 Donkeys. They wouldn't turn around. They were asses.

Goats. They had a goat show. There were 4 goats. 2 were lively, 2 were sleeping. So, naturally, they dragged the sleeping ones out to do the show. Very logical.

 Alpacas. Very fluffy and kinda cute.

 Llama. He was kinda snobby and wouldn't turn around.

Baby sheep. So cute! They kept leaping around. I almost couldn't handle it!

The craziest looking chicken I've ever seen. She DOES have a head. She just wouldn't hold still for my picture.

 Check out the size of this horse. Taller than me!

 Look at this beautiful horse! No, he's not wearing a hat.
















The poor, soggy Saddledome. It was flooded up to the 14th row. 

We took a break from the grounds and had supper at National. It was delicious! But more on that later.

We headed back to the grounds to check out the midway at night. They have this lovely ski lift type ride across the grounds. That's my sister and her friend in front of us. I was in the lift with my sister's boyfriend, and I was just a bit nervous. There's no lap bar and I was pretty sure I was going to fall out. I was assured I wouldn't. And I didn't.

Here's a view of the midway from above. Very pretty. I was also quite sure that I was going to drop my phone over the side. Once again, I didn't.

Ferris wheel!

I got this sweet bruise on my shoulder on a ride with my sister. Stupid centrifugal force pushing her against me for a very long time. It was a lot of fun, though!

Back we went the next day, heading to the rodeo. Here are the entry gates.

 On our way into the grandstand!

Pretty cool stunt bike show. Evil Kenevil's son was one of the riders.






Woo hoo!
 



















That guy in the middle is the rodeo clown. He was hilarious!

Here's me in a cowboy hat!

The next day my sister and I went downtown for some shopping and sightseeing. Here's the Calgary Tower!

Here's the elevator in the Calgary Tower. Notice the floor number. There aren't really floors, just the bottom and the top, but still.

Here I am on the glass floor! My hands were sweaty because I was so nervous.

I was pretty sure the floor was going to give out and I'd plunge to my death. But I didn't.








 

Here's a view of the Stampede grounds from the top of the tower.

The next day my sister and I headed to the mountains. I love taking pictures of the mountains.

Here is beautiful water in Lake Louise. I love it there. This time we walked down the path beside the lake, which was a lot longer than we'd expected. I love Lake Louise.

Here I am!! I know so many people who have this identical picture. In retrospect, I should probably have sat down, and I probably should have worn a different shirt.

Here is the Banff Springs hotel. We went inside to check it out. It was pretty fancy.

This is Calgary Olympic Park. It was the site of the 1988 Winter Olympics. It's still used in the winter as a practice site, and in the summer they turn the ski jump tower into a zipline and open the bobsleigh track for rides. I did both and lived to tell about it.

This isn't me, but it'll give you an idea of what it looks like to drop down three stories. Kinda scary, actually, but only at first.

Again, not me, but this is what it looks like to go down the bobsleigh run. A professional driver steers you down. I ended up straddling my sister's friend (whom I met the day before) with the driver straddling me. We got down the hill in something like 84 seconds, which was one of the best times of the day. It was all over very quickly and I only cracked my head once. Thank you, helmet!

Here we are at the Sam Roberts concert. That's hi on stage on the left. These are free concerts, so they're usually pretty crowded. We ended up moving to a different spot after this. It was a really good show!

 Even Sheriff Woody showed up!

Unfortunately, it started to rain on the way back to the car. Luckily I had the sweet $5 ponchos I bought for my sister and I a couple of days earlier. I think they're quite fashionable!

The next day we headed off to the chuck wagon races. We had standing room only tickets, so we were right down by the action. Here's the mayor of Calgary, Naheed Nenshi, waving his cowboy hat.

After the chucks were over they started the grandstand show. Here is a picture of the Young Canadians performing. I was told they were horribly cheesy and hard to watch, and I wasn't disappointed. The singing wasn't too bad, but the acting was atrocious, the choreography was bizarre and the costumes were out of this world ridiculous (and borderline ethnically offensive at times). Good for a laugh, though!

This part of the show was kind of cool. While the Young Canadians (unfortunately) sang Heart's "Barracuda", a pair of acrobatic twins did a routine in which they swung around the stage on a rope, sometimes with one holding the rope and the other hanging from his brother. It was very impressive!

This was SO cool! A team of Chinese acrobats did a routine where some held poles and others climbed the poles and then leaped from pole to pole. At one point, as you can see in this picture, the pole holders were standing on giant rubber balls. Crazy, but amazing to watch.

This is a scene from the Alberta Ballet's Elton John show. Not sure who came up with the concept, but here we have a baseball team dancing to "Benny and the Jets".

This was also really cool to see. They had wires strung from the top of the grandstand to the top of the stage (on which cowboys had flown in during the rodeo), and this amazing sculpture walked across the sky. There are two people in there, one at the front and one at the back, controlling the legs of the moose. 




And now, I present you with a special section called "The Food I Ate at the Calgary Stampede". Some of it I ate at restaurants, but I included it here because I am always amazed by the quality and diversity of the food I eat in Calgary. The food on the midway is almost an event in itself. I didn't even get to try a portion of what I wanted to try, but if I'd eaten everything I wanted to I would have been broke and fat. But, here is what I DID eat.

This wasn't at the Stampede, it was on my sister's deck, but it was delicious. Mmm, ceasar.

Pretty sure they put some kind of addictive substance in this lemonade, because if I was on the Stampede grounds, I HAD to get a lemonade from Lemon Heaven. Just lemons, ice and a little bit of sugar water. I tried to recreate it when I got home. Not as good, but passable.

Lobster poutine. Delightfully rich and cheesy. We got this at the restaurant I mentioned earlier, National. I highly recommend it!

Seafood chowder, which was also delicious. Both dishes were really rich, so I ended up leaving most of the fries with their amazing cheese sauce. Wish I had them now...

This is a ham and pineapple pancake at Pfanntastic Pannenkoek Haus. It was sweet and savoury and HUGE, so I took half of it home and ate it the next day. Just as good the second day! If you want more info on the restaurant check out Season 1, Episode 25 of "You Gotta Eat Here" on the Food Network.

This is the menu from Tubby Dog, which makes fancy hot dogs. "You Gotta Eat Here" also featured it on Season 1, Episode 22. Hopefully you can see the list of toppings. If not, here are the ones my sister, her boyfriend and I ordered. Their friend ordered the Slaw Dog, which was basically a hot dog with coleslaw on it, but I didn't get a picture of it.

This is the PBJ, which my sister's boyfriend always gets. It has, as you can imagine, peanut butter and jam, and your choice of cereal. His choice? Reese's peanut butter cup cereal. It didn't appeal to me at all, but it's his favourite.

This is my sister's hot dog, The Harlow. It has bacon, cheese, mustard and relish. I thought about getting this one, but I don't like relish, and I was intrigued by...










...the potato chips on the A-Bomb. It has all the same topping as the Harlow, but it has the chips and ketchup instead of relish. I was expecting just plain chips, but there were also barbeque, which I'm not a huge fan of. We decided to take our hot dogs back to the house to eat, and this lovely picture was taken before I dropped my hot dog on the floor of the cab. RIGHT outside my sister's house. I cleaned it up as best I could and yes, I still ate it. It was a clean cab and I really wanted that hot dog.

This is a delicious chicken taco I got from Naco, a food truck on the midway. It was one of the healthier choices I made.

Cherry lemonade, just to try something different. It was good, but not as good as the original.

I got this ice cream at Village Ice Cream. It was hit by the flood and only re-opened a couple of days before we went. Apparently it's usually quite busy, but when we went there were only a few people there. All their ice cream is made on site, and they use local products in a lot of their flavours. I had vanilla (on the left), which had little bits of real vanilla in it and salted caramel (on the right), which was amazing. I'm glad I paired it with the vanilla because it was quite rich and I don't think I could have eaten a whole dish of it.

Chicken and waffles. Probably the best thing I ate on the grounds. The waffle was nice and fluffy, with tasty syrup on it, then a few pieces of an amazingly crispy and flavourful fried chicken topped with white gravy. Soooo good!!

Chocolate covered frozen banana. Yes, I know what it looks like. Is this not the longest banana you've ever seen?? All in all it wasn't that good. Sadly.

Deep fried Snickers bar. They deep fry EVERYTHING here. One stand was even selling deep fried bubblegum and DEEP FRIED BUTTER, which basically just ended up being a buttery hollow dough, or so I hear. I didn't attempt those one. This Snickers bar was ok, except I don't like peanuts. So basically, this Snickers would have been better if it was a Mars bar.

Probably the best candy apple I've ever eaten. I think it was probably because, since the Stampede is so busy, they make them quite frequently so it was nice and fresh. The apple was crunchy and delicious and the candy was perfect. My sister and I debated with her boyfriend over which was better, candy apples or caramel apples. We voted for candy, he voted for caramel. Clearly, we are right.

Cotton candy. Nothing special here, just a bag of pure sugar, which is always good.

This is a delicious hot dog from the grandstand. I didn't take a picture early enough for you to see the whole thing...

Last, but not least, a special Stampede edition can of Bud. This was my sister's, not mine. I didn't drink that night, because I was driving. Yes, that's right, I drove in Calgary. Hooray for me!










So that was my trip! I obviously have a lot more pictures, but since this post took about 8 hours as it was, I think there's enough here that you get a pretty good idea of what my trip was like. I had so much fun, thanks to my fantastic tour guides. So if you ever get the chance to go see the Calgary Stampede, I highly recommend that you do, and take in some of the other sights in Calgary and surrounding areas. Yahoo!!!!