July 13 The Calgary Stampede

I spent a productive day in the hotel room, basically recovering from all the exercise I'd been doing. This turned out to be a bad idea cause I became more aware of the aches and pains throughout my body which made me a bit whiny.

I did walk a little bit to the plaza beside the hotel and had a nice lunch at Ricky's, I tasted Chicken and Waffles for the first time. Not bad but as usual way too much food. 

When Rob got back we headed out to the Stampede and in particular the Chuck wagon races which is why I wanted to go. Except... as with many big fairs... we had a hard time finding parking anywhere close to the venue.

Once parked we headed to the fairgrounds. Along the way, I saw an interesting sight.

The ruins of an old hospital. We had to walk by it so we could get to the entrance. I explored it a bit then we joined the thong of people headed to the grounds.

We followed the wrong group and ended up at the entrance to the concert that was happening that night.

After a long wait in line and an explanation, the cashier directed us to the main entrance.

On the way there I saw scooters that were apparently for everyone to ride but I couldn't get Rob to try one so we walked and we walked and we walked. LOL, it was a place full of sights, sounds and smells which made it difficult to pay attention to much for any length of time.

We saw this Installation on the way to the midway, children were everywhere climbing on them and pretending they were real. I was tempted but figured I was too old to climb things taller than me. 

I love my everlovin' but on occasion, he is too focused on the adult thing to do instead of just letting himself have fun for a bit. That day he was in full adult mode much to my frustration.

The Strangest thing I saw was the various types of foods made with strange ingredients like this Pickle Pizza, and deep-fried Dads Cookies I saw nearby.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                I got lots of pictures of the chuck wagon races, we watched eight of them before feeling the need to go out and explore a bit more. This is the best one as far as I can tell:

They were so fast each heat was only like 5 minutes long so I got a lot of wagons and horses just never the whole thing at once. I almost asked my Everloving to take me closer to the starting point so I could get a better picture but the crowd was insane and I don't do well in crowds.

After this, we did another more leisurely walk cause I had seen a red cowboy hat I wanted but it was a child's hat and I couldn't ask for one because of that, not sure why.

Eventually, we came to a tent of the supplier of Cowboy hats since I didn't need to explain to anyone that it was for me I bought it. I also found a sheriff star and another pin for my grandsons.

And for me, a lava whip while wearing the coveted red cowboy hat. 

All in all an excellent day, well except for the very end of the night. It had just started to get dark when we left. We headed back out the way we came in to get to the car but we couldn't find it. So I went to talk to the security types in one of those carts they drive around in. They were very nice and gave us a lift back to our vehicle. Turned out we had entered the parking lot in the wrong place. So a bit of a panic situation, our first thought was theft but no we both just had a bad directional evening.

The plaque by the horse statuary

Calgary skyline from the fairgrounds

One Guess Who Helped Sponsor It!
Yahoo that's who!