Canada Trip - Grande Finale

The main reason we even went to Canada in the first place was for the 100th Calgary Stampede. The Stampede is a huge deal for Canadians, and Chris used to go almost every summer. This year we were there for most of Friday and Saturday, so I'll combine those two days into my final post about the trip.

The Stampede Parade marks the official start of Stampede. The Leriger/Tutt clain woke up at 5:00am to get these seats. Chris earned major boyfriend points by walking back to the condo and picking me up at a much more reasonable 7:15am. We stopped at the infamous Tim Hortons (and thought of Kimber) for some Timbits and coffee (insert obligatory Canada joke here).

Chris took at least 200 photos from the 3 hour-long parade. I'll post one.

A lovely photo of Chris' family. His dad forgot to pack sunscreen and a hat. Later that day his faced looked like a tomato. Lesson learned.

After the never-ending parade we made a quick stop at Crepe de Licious for some non-fried pre-Stampede lunch. My chicken cesar crepe was another delicious meal. We walked a few blocks further and caught the C Train to the Stampede. The first thing we did was take the chair lift ride across the midway to check out the park.

Some of my favorites rides were the swinging chairs, the mini-roller coaster, and the fun house.

Those clouds were full of 15 minutes of rain. We got drenched
(even in my poncho) but then the sun came back out and we dried off rather quickly.

That night the lot of us had tickets to the Chuckwagon Races and the Grandstand Show.

Chuckwagon races are difficult to explain, but pretty fun to watch. They're also quite dangerous (for both riders and horses). I don't think they do this version of them anywhere in the states, but I could be wrong.

After the races there was a spectacular show featuring a bunch of Young Calgarians, acrobats from around the world, stunt-bike riders, and tons more. The show was well worth the price.

Family breakfast
The next day we headed out to Chris's Aunt and Uncle's house for a family breakfast, where I was appalled to learn that Calgary doesn't have Target. His poor cousins.

Chris' uncle works for the Stampede, so he seriously hooked us up with some Rodeo tickets. We sat right at the end of the infield with all of the wives and girlfriends of the cowboys.

Chris blended right in.

The rodeo was exciting, especially sitting so close.
After we'd seen enough cow wrestling and bull riding to satisy us for a very long time, we went back to the Midway so Chris could spend the rest of his tickets on games and ride.

I'm not as good at rides as I used to be. But roller coasters don't make me sick, yet.

One of Chris' proudest moments was flipping the chicken into the pot on his first try. He won me an adorable giraffe with a slight resemblance to Bevo. Similar to this guy.
We spent a few more hours exploring the Stampede Grounds, then caught the C Train back downtown for a relaxing dinner at home with the family.

Once we'd woken up on Sunday, we packed up our things for the airport. We didn't need to leave until after lunch, so we used the time to walk around Prince's Island Park and Eu Claire Market.

Last day of vacation = last ice cream cone

I got one final bag of All Dressed Potato Chips and we enjoyed some sunshine and people watching. Time to go back to Austin!