Tuesday, July 19, 2016

Goodbye Calgary

 

 

After nine days of rain kept us confined indoors or to trips in the truck, sunshine and blue skies showed their faces for most our last day in Calgary, adding pleasure to our second and last visit to the Calgary Stampede.  The events at the rodeo were the same but different.  On the last day, each event—calf roping, bulldogging, bareback riding, saddle bronc riding, barrel racing, and bull riding-- featured the top ten money winners competing for the top four places in their event. When six competitors were eliminated in each event, the four winners competed for  $100,000 and a trophy—a sculpture of their event.   This blog is all about the differences.

 

Opening ceremonies included an couple of Native dances

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Mud steer wrestling

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About halfway through the rodeo, a long, soaking rain set in.

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As soon as the arena was covered in a couple of inches of water, the rain quit.

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Pity the poor people competing in this mess.

Chuck wagons before the race,

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and after.

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How can they even see?

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Nice view of the Calgary downtown on the big screen.

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More between event fun on the big screen—the usual result of people seeing themselves on the smooch cam.

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Two chuck wagon outriders—they don’t like each other that much.

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When we discovered that the evening entertainment was the same as the one we saw on Tuesday, we decided to find some stuff we hadn’t had time to see before.

Same skyline view from the stadium as above, but at night and without rain.

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Main stadium seats as seen from the ground.  Our seats are on the top tier three rows up from the front and just to the right of the enclosed camera/announcers box.  We had an excellent view and stayed dry.

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The Stampede grounds are right downtown.

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Hand plow and massive tractor

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Poutine (pooteen)  is the quintessential local food.  It is french fries covered in gravy and topped with uncultured cheese curd.

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Other must have food

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Also wildly popular.  We looked far and wide for Italian sausages—no go, but we did find two places that had elephant ears and funnel cakes.

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Moonlight  versus man man light.  Moon wins.

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Next up, back to the Rockies.

Louise and Duane

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