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Record Breaking Birthday!
Hello from Calgary, where we are having a lazy day after a late night celebrating Bry’s birthday.
In our last update we suggested the weather had improved, however half an hour after uploading it we were hit by another torrential thunderstorm. Again there was hail, not as big as last time but enough for us to use our windscreen sun protector on the outside of Bowser, just in case! We were cooking dinner on an open fire, which we tried to protect with foil, but it was soon extinguished as the hail smashed holes through the foil.
We didn’t have the room attached to our tent, so we retreated to the front seats of Bowser and attacked our emergency rations (cereal bars and family pack of crisps). We watched as the campsite filled up with about 2 inches of water and laughed as our flip-flops floated under Bowser and off into next door’s camp. As per normal, the storm soon passed and we were glad to find the roof tent withstood it all, unlike some of our poor neighbours in ground tents.
From Saskatoon, we have slowly made our way across the plains to Calgary, Alberta, crossing the ‘badlands’ of the Red Deer Valley. The change in the landscape was dramatic but quite welcome after the endless expanse of the prairies. The valley contains canyons and cool rock formations formed by the ice age.
The area is famous for dinosaur fossils, resulting in the Royal Tyrrell Museum at Drumheller, which our Lonely Planet describes as “one of the pre-eminent dinosaur museums on the planet, in many ways this is the real Jurassic Park”. They did have some amazing exhibits as part of what is apparently the world’s largest collection of actual dinosaur fossils, as opposed to the casts you normally see in a museum. It was also interesting to see their workshops, where they extract the fossils from the rock and reconstruct the skeletons.
There wasn’t much else in Drumheller, apart from dinosaur-based tat, including the ‘World’s largest dinosaur’, a 26 metre high fibreglass T-Rex. In complete contrast, just up the road is the old mining town of Wayne, which used to have a population in the thousands but is now home to just 28, many of whom we met, including numbers 27 and 28, two young boys, Bentley and Beckham and their parents, Heather and Brian. To get to Wayne you drive across 11 bridges in less than 4 miles – apparently another world record! The town may be small, but it still has a pub – The Last Chance Saloon – which is a now a touristy/biker bar full of nostalgic memorabilia.
So on Sunday we went to the final day of the Calgary Stampede, billed as ‘the greatest show on Earth’, to see the world’s best horse and bull riders compete for the $2 million cash prizes. We didn’t really know what to expect, or whether to believe the hype, but when we got there we were in awe of the sheer size of the place. The arena where the rodeo takes place is just a small part of the park, which also includes 13 other arenas or stages, plus fairgrounds, pubs, nightclubs and hundreds of food and shopping stalls. Somewhere between 1 and 1.5 million people attend over the 10 days – it felt like a mix between Cheltenham Races, Glastonbury and Alton Towers, but with a strictly enforced ‘wild west’ fancy dress theme! After our last few weeks on the prairies, it was a real, but exciting assault on our senses.
The rodeo events were, of course, thrilling to watch but other highlights included the more sedate Heavy Horse sledge pull, the adrenaline fuelled motorbike/skidoo show and the highly entertaining stunt dog show. The latter included another world record attempt by trying to get a German Shepherd to jump more than 33 feet into a pool. Unfortunately he only managed 31 feet!
We made a full day of it, starting with pancakes for breakfast, pulled-pork poutine (chips, cheese, gravy) for lunch and a rack of BBQ ribs for dinner, washed down with Coke, Budweiser and Jack Daniels! Sod the budget, it was Bry’s birthday treat! After the extravagant firework display, it was back on the big yellow school bus at midnight for the trip back to our campsite.
We spent Bry’s birthday morning at a lakeside beach in Chestermere before exploring Calgary and enjoying the beautiful river and parks, just generally chilling out. We then headed to one of Caroline’s old work mates, James, where his wife Morgan, her Mum, Fiona, Aunty Cath and Uncle Rob thoroughly entertained us with beer, BBQ and birthday cake. They all made us feel very welcome and made Bry’s birthday one to remember.
Thanks for all the birthday messages from home and especially to those who secretly gave Caroline birthday cards before we left. It was a treat for Bry to open birthday cards in the morning, even if we haven’t got anywhere to display them!
Next stop the Rockies to visit Banff and Jasper National Parks.
TTFN