July 30th, 2015
Facts about Calgary Stampede
The first Calgary Stampede was held in 1912. More than two million mini doughnuts are sold each year. More than 200,000 pancakes are served at community breakfasts each year.
Cycling Stats
Start point: Canmore, Alberta, Canada
Destination: Calgary, Alberta, Canada
102 km trip, 16.2 km/h average speed, 50.7 km/h maximum speed, 6:18 time on bike
What happened…
Andrew writes: Canmore is a nice place, and offers lots of activities nearby, and part of me wishes we had done more to take advantage of that. We spent the day just hanging out around the downtown area, and despite all attempts to secure a roof over our head, we ended up just stealth-camping beside the Visitor’s Centre. There was a couple of cycle tourists getting a late start to Banff that we met, Gina and Ryan. Ryan is carrying both a fiddle and a banjo. Inspirational indeed. They’re just doing a “short” tour to Nelson, and I think they mentioned trying to sneak into the Shambahla Music Festival somehow too.
The ride today was something I was prepared for, since I had ridden the same ride last year when I rode from Vancouver to Calgary. The scenery was a little bit nicer, more green than the brown I had experienced in the spring, but still kind of boring. Looking in the rear view mirror it was beautiful though, as the Rockies just appear as grey shadows on the horizon.
It’s strange the things that stick out for me when recalling a day (a few days later). One thing I really enjoyed today was sitting with Amanda outside of a convenience store, sharing a Slurpee, and leafing through a newspaper. Just the feeling of transience, and freedom of being able to relax on the curb, and enjoy the sun and good company.
We are a day early getting to Calgary to start a house-sitting assignment and I’m really glad that we are able to enjoy the hospitality of Eric and Bridget. Their two sons are as adorable as a 5 and 3 year old can be, but they definitely take after their dad. Everyone is a “jerk” or “butt-face” to them and I think it’s hilarious.
Amanda writes:
We knew this would be a long day and we were mentally prepared for it. It was glorious to ride downhill for almost the entire ride. It was almost a let down feeling to have the rockies disappear around you as you headed closer to Calgary. I woke up on the wrong side of the bed and was feeling particularly cranky. Andrew gave me my much needed space and we just rode bikes. The roadway was beautiful and 99% of the cars were courteous.
Heading into Cochrane was shocking to me. I was born and raised in Calgary and was familiar with Cochrane and wow it had grown. As we neared the City we followed the directions I had written down. We were bombing down Crowchild Trail and then I just stopped. I told Andrew I felt like we had gone too far. He agreed to check out the situation. We had just past an overpass that looked like there were some stores that might have wifi at them, so we went back and looked up the address. My instincts were great! We were merely 3 blocks from Andrew’s brothers house Eric. We rolled up in the afternoon and received the most lovely greeting from Andrew’s Sister-in-law Bridgette and their two boys Quinn and Hugo.
They were so generous and gracious and welcomed us with open arms. We are so lucky that the different pieces of family always consider us family no matter how long it’s been since we’ve seen them. We hope one day to return the favour when people start visiting us abroad. We settled in for the night and did some catching up with Eric when he got home from work.
The next day we were off to move to our house sitting location which was nearby. We were scheduled to be there for 10 days and were looking forward to the break.