Oh Canada!

Our RV has been checked out and even the under carriage inspected by our Tailgunner, Jesse.  We passed thanks to Pete’s preparations.  There are lots of things that can go wrong in deserted areas!  Jesse comes around every travel day at 7:30 am to thump the tires with a 9 iron to make sure that the double axle big RVs have no flat tires because they don’t always look flat.  Pete says every farm boy knows this.  News to this suburban lady!

We started out with our group of three rigs (Pod)  and our walkie talkies ready to go!  

Members of our pod

 Pete is loving those—wish we’d had these as kids.  They reach about a mile so we can discuss rest stops etc.  Works really well and fun to use.   We have detailed driving instructions.  We can drive on our own but we found it is more fun with the pod and it is really relaxing to just follow Ron and Joyce who like to lead.  Crossing the border was a piece of cake. We think being in the caravan of geezers (Carrie’s high school fond description of us) helped.

We drove about 4 hours to Great Canadian Barn Dance Campground and settled in for the night after snacks and drinks with the group.  People told funny things that happened—one guy’s air conditioner cover fell off his RV and got stuck under the next RV.  They had to jack up the RV to pull it out.  It is now back in place with bungee cords and duct tape!   The same man (apparently feeling the stress of the air conditioner) was trying to fill his RV with fresh water but instead connected it to the black water (sewer tank in his RV).  The sewage tank filled up and the pressure shot sewer water up through the vents on the roof of his RV while he was trying to re-attach his air conditioner cover!    Our fellow travelers helped him out and he loved telling the story of his bad day.

 The farmland in Alberta, Canada has VAST expanses of yellow flowers---thousands of acres.  We found out these are Canola plants!  So that’s where your Canola oil comes from!

Field upon field of Canola, as far as the eye can see

A tour bus picked us up this morning at 7:45 am for a day of sightseeing.  The Remington Carriage Museum was first.   There were 300 carriages and sleighs of all types.  The tour, carriage ride and the movie were all top notch. 

Carriage ride

Then onto “Head Smashed in Buffalo Jump” museum which is devoted to Black Foot Indians and how they were so dependent on the buffalo for their survival.  They dressed as wolves and caused the buffalo herd (50- 250) to stampede and run off a cliff to their death.  Several tribes worked together to use every part of the buffalo and this would keep them alive through the winter.  Very well done exhibits, movie, tour guide and native dance show.

That same evening we feasted on a TERRIFIC dinner at the campground followed by an EVEN BETTER show put on by the very musical family that are the third generation owners of the campground.  Can’t remember when we enjoyed a show so much.  Ronan, their gifted 18 yr old son, played at least 6 instruments and sang.  They put on old fashioned barn dances on the weekends—would love to go to that!

Tomorrow we head out again with our RV pals to Calgary! Touring the city and attending the Calgary Stampede,  one of the largest rodeos in the world.

The day started with the Calgary Stampede parade leaving the park at 7am.  There were seven hundred horses in the parade, including miniature and Percherons, Mexican dancers,  and Royal Mounties--it was pretty good.

Royal Canadian Mounted Police -- "Mounties"

From there we went to Heritage Park for a lovely gourmet lunch and then a tour of the park.  It is a restored village from 1910 in Alberta complete with a cast of people dressed in the period who stayed in character.   It was Disney quality without the crowds.  Train, horse carriage rides and boat rides all included made it really interesting.  They also had a museum of old cars and gasoline pumps.  Pete remembers the Old Hudson his grandfather had--just like the one in the picture along with the old gas pumps.

Salesman trying to sell Pete a 1930 Hudson

Day 2 in Calgary!  The beauty of this Adventure Caravan is that every detail is taken care of for us--so much more relaxing and  we have the fun to share with our fellow travelers!  Our Wagon Masters (Jan and Ray) arrange "dog walkers" since we would be gone over 9 hours--they really think of everything.  There are 24 dogs in our group!  The bus picks us up right by our RV--they hand out water on the bus and off we go.  The drive took us by the site of the 1988 winter Calgary Olympics.  These are the ski jumps along with the luge and bobsled runs (not seen in the picture).

Ski jumps Calgary Olympics

First stop was beautiful Olympic square in downtown Calgary where the streets were blocked off and over 15 pancake and bacon stands were set up--the one in the picture was sponsored by a funeral home!  Blueberry pancakes, syrup wrapped around a strip of bacon--ALL FREE and people just kept getting in different lines until full.  There were country artists singing, square dances, and lots of flowers and "characters everywhere"!

Free pancakes and bacon

Our trip provided us all tickets to the lovely Benbow museum which was right in the same area so we were able to get a little culture in with the pancakes!





Our big bus picked us right up and off to the Calgary Stampede grounds.  The first order of business was more food--had to try the famous Canadian POUTINE.  These are french fries covered with gravy and cheese curds.  Not that tasty to us but they were BIG sellers!

Poutine

 The rodeo started with fireworks, horses tearing around the track and then the bronco bull riders coming down on wires from the upper grandstand--very impressive.  I guess if you can face a 1500 pound bull close up, sliding down a hundred feet on a wire is no big deal!  All the events were terrific but what made our day was a GRANDMOTHER winning the barrel racing.  The cheering was awesome--especially from our group of mostly seniors.