July 9, 2012 - Canmore/Banff Canada

Today we left about 10:00 on the bus and headed to Calgary (about 1 hour drive) to attend the Calgary Stampede. Since I didnt want to walk around the fairgrounds all day long, I elected to stay on the bus when we got there and took the city tour which took about 3 hours with a 1 hour stop for lunch. Stopped by the Olympic village for about 30 minutes and the rest of the time was in the bus seeing all the city highlights.

We got back to the stampede about 3:00 and it was HOT for Calgary, about 33 degC or 90 degF. I wore my cowboy duds and hat but did not wear my boots because I can only take about 2-3 hours of walking in boots.

This was the 100th year celebration of the stampede and boy was it BIG. It looked to me to be bigger than the Texas State Fair.

They had huge area where the native Indians showed you life in their various tribes.

There were authentic teepees from all the various tribes - must have been about 30-40 of them. Members of the tribe stayed in them during the stampede and some of them were open so you could see in them.

I walked around visiting some of the booths and vendor booths and of course the beer booths. Since beer was about $7 for a can of Bud, I did not get too many. There was a big wine garden set up in one of the air conditioned halls so I relaxed there for about an hour and did some people watching while sipping a few glasses of merlot.

On my way to the stadium for the big show, I ran across the Budweiser clydsdales. They were just getting them harnessed up and hooked up the the trailer to drive around the fairgrounds. Before they put any tack on the horses they brush them down really good and feather up the hair on their hooves. It takes about 10 minutes to get each one ready.

Opening ceremonies at the stadium.

The chuckwagon races started at about 8:00 and there were 9 heats of 4 wagons each. The races originated by the cowboys of the stampede in 1923 and is probably the most thrilling sport known to man. The races get under way as a quartet of four-horse wagons and their sixteen outriders thunder around the half-mile track in pursuit of a $1,500,000 purse.This was really exciting to watch.

Following the races, there was a 90 minute celebration of the 100 year anniversary complete with a firework display that was better than anything I had seen in Houston. It reminded me of an opening ceremony that you see on TV for the Olympics. There were headline acts from around the world and world class singers. It rivaled the Houston Livestock show and hands down.

Bringing the huge stage onto the track.

Some of the pyrotechnics and entertainment.

I will try to upload some of the videos that I took during the show and put them into my picture album at:
https://picasaweb.google.com/106137482761610674940/2012CanadianRockiesTrip

We finally arrived back at the campground about 1:00 in the morning and then I slept in.