Saturday July 15 - Day 15 Current Location: Calgary, AB Distance Traveled: 9,070km Some days of my trip have been leisurely, relaxing, and great for resting or simply enjoying where I am. And I know I'll have more days like those. But today was not one of them. In fact, though I normally only have one headliner adventure each day, today I was lucky enough to have two of them. And they both claim the same title, though I can't decide if either one deserves it more than the other. The day began early (much too early) with a drive further into Banff National Park, as Vicki and I continued to the town of Lake Louise. Every few miles through the mountains it seems like the scenery is totally different, and every range is more captivating than the last one. And no matter how dramatic nothing make the park any less captivating with every new area we're exploring. Being a Saturday morning, there were large crowds in the area enjoying the park. We managed to find reasonable parking and took a short walk through the woods until we came to the Fairmont resort, and one of the famous circular views of Lake Louise itself. Between the symmetry, the colours, and the intoxicating fresh air, the lake was a majestic and harmonious area impossible to describe. There were some visitors canoeing on lake, and photographers all along the boardwalk. I'd heard some of the parks here out west were struggling to keep things clean and maintained with the mass influx of visitors here for free, but the staff have done a fabulous job preserving the site and offering tips and their stories of the lake. When on the train to Nova Scotia, I'd met some scouts on their way to the Canadian Jamboree, and one of the leaders named Scouter Chris encouraged me to visit the lake and hike to the nearby teahouse on Lake Agnes. He said it was a secret hut in the woods you could only get to on foot - so off we went. The park guides showed us the trail, and told us it was a 9km roundtrip hike, about 4.5 km each way. What both the guides and Scouter Chris neglected to mention, however, was the hike was entirely uphill through the Rocky Mountains. It took some stamina and extra effort, but we happily hiked for about three hours there and back to find the house. And boy did we take pictures of the route. I took dozens of photos of each spot along the mountainside trail, and we kept climbing to the top. The big highlights were definitely the lookout over the entire Lake Louise Valley and the waterfalls. Near the very end we came to a waterfall 200 feet above Mirror Lake, and I carefully walked out to the stones in the centre. It was the most exhilarating and dangerous picture I've ever taken, BUT WHAT A VIEW. Once we arrived at the top, we found the teahouse, and enjoyed some teas and baked goods they made in the old kitchen. The tea house was built in 1905, and still sources water from the lake the house overlooks. My flavour was a special for the 150th of Canada, which they called the "Canada 1-fif-tea." (Get it? It's a tea joke!) We also found some birds near our bench, and pleasantly had our snack after our hike up the 1,300+ elevation! We had no clue until we reached the top how steep and how tall the hike had actually been. To put that height in perspective, my walk around the top of the CN Tower earlier this week was 170 feet less than what we climbed on foot this morning. It was an exhilarating trek through Banff and Lake Louise - but our adventure today was only starting. We drive back to Calgary in the afternoon, heading straight for downtown to the world famous Calgary stampede. One of my mother's friends lives west of the city, and offered her house to us to sleep in while she's away on vacation. The stampede is a rodeo, country fair, midway, agriculture show, weeklong party and everything you can cram into fairgrounds. The entire assembly is ENORMOUS, and you could easily spend the full ten days here and still not see every exhibition. And with all the real-life cowboys hanging around, our hosts loaned and encouraged me to wear a cowboy hat, saying I'd "blend in easier." They weren't wrong. And it definitely helped keep out the sun during the hot evening. We walked around and saw a twelve-horse hitch being put together, miles of sheep in stocks, and ate some delicious smoked chicken and waffles. I even succumbed and (reluctantly) drank a Budweiser, complete in specially designed Calgary Stampede Bud cans. But all joking aside, everything was really tasty, and we had lots of fun touring the fairgrounds. And we got a great view seeing the 12-horse carriages. One very special experience that I wasn't expecting was wandering into the Strength and Fitness Exposition and Summer Final Contest. It's run by the Alberta Strongman Association, and we got a chance to meet some of the strongmen competing, and watched them lift some weights over 600 pounds. One gentleman had even ripped a phone book in half earlier that afternoon. One of the guys we met was an artist based in Edmonton named Tony Reid, a former competitive strongman who now makes sculptures and artworks out of metal...that he bends with his BARE HEANDS. Beyond being super cool and impressively strong, his work is wildly creative and beautiful to see. He spent some time talking about his work and how he creates the sculptures, and asked about where we were from. When I told him about my trip across the country, he smiled and gave me one of his pieces from earlier in the day - he'd twisted a horseshoe into a heart and signed it for me. This gift was incredibly kind, and exceptionally personal for both of us. This was a truly special experience for me, and a great souvenir to bring home from my adventure. I haven't been keeping many things other than paper tickets from my trip, but you bet I'm finding a special place for this. We spent almost half an hour with Tony and his team, and it was loads of fun hanging out with the strongmen. I even tried lifting one of the weights, and with a two-hand mulligan, I was able to lift a two hundred pound block. A huge thanks goes to Tony and his studio, Mind Over Metal. You can find them on Facebook and Instagram, where his original works are also available for sale. The grand finale tonight was the famous Calgary grandstand show, done each night of the stampede in a 40,000 person stadium that centres on a mile-long racing track. The show itself is a double event, first showing the nightly chuck wagon races, followed by the artistic grandstand nighttime spectacular. Our host here, Deborah McCaig and her family, surprised us with two tickets in the stands to enjoy the night's festivities. This was an incredibly generous gift from there, and a totally unforgettable experience. There was so many exciting parts to the night, I've been left no choice but to include a second slideshow for the day. We begin with the high-intensity chuck wagon races as the sun went down, including the retirement race of 6-time Calgary champion Kelly Sutherland. There was a really nice ceremony with him and his family after his last race, and it ended with his son making his Stampede debut in the closing race of the night. After the race, they moved th large stage into the field and began the evening grandstand show. This year's was called Together, themed after Canada's sesquicentennial. The show itself is part circus, part variety show/concert and part arena spectacular. The Highlights included a tightrope walker on fire, Aboriginal dancers, Fiddlers in water fountains and a circus comedy act imitating a game of table hockey. The show was beyond spectacular, and the fireworks at the end was one of the largest (and loudest) stadium finales ever assembled. I owe a very special thank you to Deborah and her family for their hospitality and the tickets for tonight; I'm so grateful for the chance to see the Stampede and the massive scale of sport and entertainment that makes it world-famous. I learned today just how seriously Alberta takes their horsing around. Even though the stampede is large in size, and anything but modest, I was pleasantly surprised how warm and inviting the atmosphere was. It's loud, rough, and an accurately named "Stampede" - and it was also a truly welcoming environment where everyone was encouraged and invited to be part of the local community for today. After a long, 19+ hour day, I'm ready for a good night's sleep. The party easily went until after 1:00am (even though the Stampede grounds close at midnight) and the city kept gong well into the night. I can see the attraction to both of the outdoors i got to explore today - both in the city and the park. And both too were unquestionably great.
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