Calgary Stampede

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I've had such a good week this last week. I had put on my facebook status that I was heading to Calgary, so Troy called me saying that he was there too, so we made arrangements to meet up the next day. On Wednesday night, Ken and Kathy took me to Abbotsford Airport to board my flight to Calgary. My flight left at 1945 and landed at just after 2200. When I went through the arrival gate I met the guy I was staying with, Joe. Thanks to Jules, he offered me a place to stay. So after I had collected my bag, we headed out the doors and into his truck. Once we were at his place, he showed me the little room and bed that he'd made up for me, then we sat talking for an hour or so before heading to bed.

The next day, Joe headed me in the direction of the bus stop to head to downtown Calgary to meet up with Troy. Once I was in downtown, I got off the bus and hoped I was heading in the right direction of his hotel. When I eventually found the hotel, I walked inside to the lobby to find Troy and his room mate Meagan checking out. Troy greeted me with a huge hug and a 'this weird for both of us being here!' After they had finished checking out, headed to a Starbucks and sat for a couple of hours catching up. Around 12pm, we went our seperate ways, they headed to the bus station and I went to do some sightseeing before meeting up with Joe later in the afternoon. I went up the Calgary Tower where I could see right out to the Rocky Mountians, the view was awesome. I could also see where the Stampede was going to be. After that, I went for a walk up Stephens Avenue where there were all different little stalls up the street selling clothes, cowboy hats, jewellery, etc. I did a bit of shopping, buying a dress, cowboy hat, boots and souviners. I spent so much money in such a short period of time, but that's ok.

Hi, my name is Stacy, and I'm an alcoholic! lol. On contrary to what I wrote in my last blog, I have had a big few days of drinking. After a few hours hours of walking around and having lunch, Joe picked me up and we headed back to his place then out to Banff. It took a little over an hour to get from Calgary to Banff, so we got out there around 4:30pm. We headed straight to the Fairmont Banff Springs to try and find Troy. When we got there, I called him to see where he was and he told me that he'd come find me. Joe and I went for a walk to have a look at the Fairmont which was quite nice, I must admit. After about 10 minutes, he still hadn't come over to the hotel and he only lived across the road, so we decided to walk over to the staff housing to see if we could find him. So many people pased us and not one of them asked why we were in the staff area, good security, lol. Anyway, I eventually called him as we couldn't find him, and he came out and found us. We headed into his and Meagan's flat which was small but quite nice then decided to head into town for dinner. I bought more souviners and then found a pub for dinner. It was a warm day and I was craving a beer. So when we ordered dinner, I also ordered a Kokanee Beer, a Canadian Beer and doesn't taste too bad. It was nice on a hot day. I had two with my Shephards Pie which was also quite nice. After dinner and a couple of drinks, we headed to Cows, an ice creamery that was really yummy. I had a sundae that consisted of cookies and cream and chocolate fudge ice cream topped off with whipped cream in a waffle bowl. It was really good.

When we headed back to Troy's place, we decided to stay the night in Banff, so we headed to the liquor store where I bought myself a bottle of Rasberry Bubbles then went back to the flat to drink before going out. I ended up drinking the whole bottle before leaving the flat, it did taste pretty good. When Troy and Meagan were ready, we walked from the Fairmont into town which was about a twenty minute walk, then again, we were quite drunk even before we got into the club, so it could've just seemed longer. We headed to a club that turned into a Gay bar for one night a month, as we were with Troy and Joe who are both gay, thats where we went. Although Meagan, Sarah (another of Troy's friends) and I did have a good time. When we paid the $5 entry fee, we were given a free drink coupon, obviously just on beer and wine. After I had the beer though, I knew that if I had anything else, I would be sick the next day so I stopped drinking there and then while everyone else kept going. During the night, Meagan and I headed outside for some fresh air and didn't even realise that we were sitting out there for 45mins, apparently Troy was getting worried. Whoops!!! When we went back inside, we danced and danced and danced, our feet were getting quite sore. I danced on the podium with Meagan, it was quite fun until some chick started dancing with me lol, then very quickly jumped down and went back to my little group. We left when the club closed and we ended up sitting ouside for a little bit, Meagan and I away a bit from Troy, Joe and Sarah talking when we saw that they had got up and were walking, we assumed that they were heading for food, so we got up and followed. When they walked past all the food places, we didn't know where they were going, so we stopped and went in the the McDonalds, we wanted water and food. When we walked in Meagan had a bit of a fall, their was food on the floor and she slipped on it and fell, of course, there were Aussie's and Kiwi's in there and all yelled out TAXI!!! To explain, this was quite funny to hear as Canadian's have never heard that call before. When I turned around and saw that she was on the ground, all I could say was "what are you doing down there???" Once we got our food, we headed outside to sit and wait for the guys, Troy called to see where we were and five minutes later he was sitting down with us, but he was without Joe. He then filled us in that Joe had walked Sarah home which was on the other side of Banff. Half an hour later, he finally came back and we walked back to Troy's where we all passed out around four in the morning.

Once we were all organised, we all left for breakfast at a diner not far away where we all got bacon and eggs. After that, we headed to the Banff Gondola and went up to the summit where there were spectacular views of Banff. We spent an hour or so up there, it was pretty hot and I could feel myself getting burnt. When we were heading down, Troy was freaking out as the gondola was swinging in the wind, it was so funny. At the bottom, it was time to head back to Calgary, we dropped Troy and Meagan in town, gave them a hug and left. The way back to Calgary seemed faster then the way there, I was even getting burnt in the car. When we got back to Joe's house, we had showers and relaxed on the lounge for the rest of the afternoon. We watched some tv then a movie called Stardust which was a pretty good movie. Towards the end of the movie, Justin, Joe's house mate came home from work, he seemed like a nice guy. Joe made hamburgers on the BBQ for dinner, Justin's girlfriend Robin came over and we all had a couple of drinks. Joe went ot bed early as he had to work early the next morning, and Justin said that he'd come to the stampede with me the next day. Robin was already going with a couple of friends and were just gonna spend the whole day and night in Nashville North (the bar and concert pavillion that stays open til 2am and takes about four hours to get into). After our big night in Banff, I turned in early as I knew it was gonna be a big day at the stampede.

I got up at 8am to get ready for the stampede. By the time I got out of the shower, Justin was up too and getting organised. We were gonna head to a Stampede breakfast before going to the stampede grounds. During the stampede, alot of businesses and church's and stuff put on free breakfasts and Justin wanted to take full advantage of free food lol. So we stood in line for about 15 minutes and had pancakes and sausages, YUM!!! After we ate, we headed to the train station that would take us to the stampede. It was still early and none of the shows or rides had started going yet, so we wondered around the grounds and bought our rodeo tickets and had a look at the rides, it was like a theme park although the rides were expensive just like the Easter Show at home. At 11am we left the stampede to go to a pud and watch the Uraguay and Germany world cup game and have a few drinks. I tried another Canadian beer called Moosehead which was pretty nice. We also had lunch there as we knew the food would be pretty expensive at the stampede. One of Justin's friends, Duncan joined us at the pub for the last part of the game. After the game we headed out of the pub and realised that it was raining. Oh man!!! We walked back to the stampede, Duncan joined us too. I gained myself a cow bell from some pasing hot guys who were all dressed the same. We got a little wet on the way back but when we were watching the last part of the rodeo, we were standing out in the rain so we got pretty wet. When the rodeo finished and we walked out of the grandstand we saw how long the line was for Nashvile North which was pretty damn long, Justin said that the wait would be around the two to three hour mark. Bugger that. We headed ot a food stand and bought deep fried oreo's, I know, I know, it wound gross, right? I was actually pretty nice, not something that I want everyday, but nice just the same. After that we went to see the ice skating show. They had people who won gold in the Olympics doing figure skating to rock and roll music, ACDC, U2, The Beatles, Kiss, was so good. It went for about half an hour and even Justin and Duncan said that they were impressed. They weren't even gonna watch it. About half an hour after that, Joe showed up so we walked all through the pavillions, they had four different showbags (so that part was very different to the Easter Show) they also had an area that was especially for TV advertising products. When we went back outside, it was raining again, so we went to watch one of the horse and carriage shows, it was quite boring, but it was dry lol. After about half an hour watching that, we went back outside, it had stopped raining again, I was still trying to decide what ride I wanted to go on, the sling shot or the skyscaper. None of the guys would go on with me though. By this time, it was just after 8pm and the evening show was due to start. Justin and Duncan headed home and Joe and I went to get tickets for the show. It's a shame that it was raining, two acts of the show couldn't perform as it was too dangerous to do it in the wet. We watched the Chuckwagon Races then they put the stage together and out came dance groups of all different ages. The Canadian Idol sang her first single, which actually sounded pretty crap live. I was disappointed that the motorcross stunts couldn't be performed, they played a video from the night before which wasn't quite the same. The show went for about two and a half hours and ended with fireworks. One day down at the stampede, one to go.

The next day, I woke up about 9am, had a shower and got ready. I was going back to the stampede on my own today as Justin and Joe had things to do. I didn't mind though. Again, after a stampede breakfast of pancakes, sausages, fruit and juice, Joe dropped me off at the train station and I made my way to the grounds. When I was sitting on the train, I heard the conductor say to change for the stampede grounds, so I got off, but everyone else who was wearing cowboy hats stayed on the train. I was so confused. The next train came and I was told that the train was terminating there, so I knew not to get on that one. However one girl approached me and asked me how far it was to the stampede grounds. I didn't know it then, but her name was Hannah and I was gonna spend basically the whole day with her. With Hannah being a fellow Aussie who had been working in Scotland for the last year, it turned out that we had alot in common, even though she was from Tasmania. We wondered around for a bit, bought tickets for the rodeo and after getting something to eat we went and found our seats in the grandstand where we would be fore the next three hours. We saw bareback riding, bull riding, barrell races even little kids had a go at roping in a small horse and climbing on, it was the funniest thing ever. The rodeo was awesome, I enjoyed it alot. When we made our way out of the grandstand, we headed to the pavillion where the ice skating and show bags were, Hannah was gonna see the show and I wanted a showbag, it came with a really nice Calgary Stampede backpack. So we eventually went our seperate ways, I wanted to see the motorcross show before heading back to Joe's place. As I was heading in the right direction for the show, I passed the Skyscaper, I still really wanted to go on it, but still had no one to go on it with. I was looking at the prices when I saw a girl trying to convince her boyfriend to go on it with her, it wasn't working, so I offered to go on with her. We paid our money and joined the line with her boyfriend holding our stuff. After about half an hour in the line, I found out her name, which I couldn't pronounce, and she was visiting from Poland, she didn't understand alot of English. So after our wait, it was finally our turn so we got all strapped in, it wasn't very tight and their was alot of movement for me. I was a little nervous. Once we were all strapped in, they swung us upside down and then we were away, going up at 70 miles an hour and the down again and round and round, it was so much fun. Then it came to off loading people at the other end which meant we had to sit at the top for five minutes or so. I think that was the scariest part as you didn't know when you'd go again and if you were gonna go forward or backwards. Eventually we went again, it was so much fun, I'm glad I did it. As I got off, I waited to get the video as the motorcross was starting right next door, unfortunatly, it was so packed, there was no seats left and people were queuing out the door way, so I basically only saw the stunt people flying through the air and the tricks they did while they were in the air, it was pretty good though. After the show, I had to get back to Joe's place to head back to the airport. I headed towards the train station, but their were so many people boarding the train, I decided to start walking, I wasn't very far from the city, so I'd catch a bus from there. When I got there, I realised that I didn't know what bus to get or where from. So I kept walking, I was in need of water, so I wanted to find some. All the shops I went into were all sold out, what the hell??? I eventually found a greek festival so I bought a bottle of water from there. By this stage, I had walked from one side of the city to the other, I decided to find a taxi and cab it back. When I asked the driver if he knew where the address was, he couldn't speak english at all, I got frustrated and kept walking. I found the main road and the place where Justin and I had breakfast the day before, so I knew I was only 2kms away from the house. So, I just kept on walking. I was about two blocks away from the house when it started raining really hard and even had hail in it. I ended sheltering in a bus shelter with two other people and their kids until it passed. I ended up quite wet. Once it stopped, I walked as quickly as I could back to the house. I arrived just before 8pm, and Justin was taking me to the airport at 8:30, was cutting it fine. So I left the stampede around quarter to 6, so it took me a little while to get back. After Justin dropped me at the airport, I checked in and got myself some dinner and waited for my flight. Two hours later, I was landing in Abbotsford, collecting my lugguage and hoping that Kathy would remember to pick me up. To my surprise, Heidi, Elbie, Nate and Danny had all come for the ride too. It was a late night that night, didn't get back home till 1:30am and had to start at 9:30, oh no!!!

Back at work, all was basically the same, although the weather had gone bad again. I worked for three days before I had days off again. And organised to go rafting with Kathy, Ken and Elbie on the Nahatlatch River with Fraser River Expeditions. So on Wednesday in my lunch break I rang the rafting place and booked in, thankfully they had another free spot. On Thursday morning we set out around 9am to go to the rafting place and get fitted out for our wetsuits, life jackets and helmets. By 10:30, we left on the bus to head up to the river, it took us about an hour to get there as the bus was slow. When we finally arrived at the lake, Lisa, Simon and Darwin got the rafts organised while Rusty took everyone through the training and safety procedures. Eventually, we got the rafts in the water, we all climbed in and ran through the different commands. We then all had to jump in the water and rescue each other. The water was so cold still, we obviously haven't had enough sunshine to warm the water up yet. After we had all done that, we headed back to shore and back onto the bus to go to where we were starting the rafting while Lisa, Rusty and Simon all took the rafts through the most dangerous part of the rapids. Once we were at the starting position, we all loaded back into the rafts and we were off. Looking at the river, it didn't seem that it was gonna be that rough, but once we were in the water going through the rapids, it was clear that it was gonna be one hell of a ride down the river. Elbie and I sat in the middle of the raft with Kathy and Ken behind us and two other girls in front of us. We were going down the river twice, the first time was awesome although whenever we went through some big rapids, I'd bounce up and land on Kathy's knee, so I was sure that I was gonna end up with a bruise on my ass. We also worked out why we had to wear helmets, Kathy and I kept headbutting each other which was quite funny. So about 45 mins later, we had finished the first run and we unloaded out of the rafts and found Darwin setting up for lunch. We had fresh meat, cheese and salad sandwiches which were really nice. We all sat and talked and ate for 40mins or so before climbing back on the bus and heading back up the river again. This time, the girls in the front, swapped seats with Elbie and I so we were in the front. It was so much fun, we ran into one of the rock walls at the first rapids and felt like we were gonna tip over and fall in, we didn't though. There was so much more movement in the front, we got wetter there too. At the half way point we stopped for a break and again the girls swapped positions, Kathy was now behind me and girls were sitting next to each other. Away we went again, up and down, crashing through the rapids, before I knew what was happening, I had fallen out of the raft and was in the water trying to find where the hell I was lol. I turn around to the raft and everyone it holding out the paddles for me to grab hold of, I finally got hold of the the raft again for all of two seconds before I was pulled away again. When I turned around I thought the raft was gonna go right over the top of me, but Ken grabbed me hands and finally pulled me back in the raft, I still had no idea where I was, once I got my breathe again, I sat up and started paddling again and was laughing about what had just happened. Five minutes later, we had went through another set of rapids and both girls were about to fall out, I grabbed hold of one foot and pulled her back, but the other one fell in, although Rusty pulled her back as quickly as she fell out. At least I wasn't the only on who fell out lol. By the time we were on land again, everyone was asking me if I was ok, I just laughed and nodded. Now I'm know to Lisa, Simon and Rusty as the girl who fell out from Hells Gate lol. It was quite funny though, on about three occasion's Rusty fell out of his seat onto the floor of the raft. Both Lisa and Simon had a god laugh at that along with the six of us the raft with him. After we had all stripped off our wetsuits and stuff, we got dressed and headed back to town. They dropped Elbie and I right out the front of our doors, but Kathy and Ken went back to Yale with everyone as they were heading into Hope and Chilliwack. We got back home just before everyone from work. The first question was "Did you have fun???" Umm, yep, sure did lol. Then I told everyone that I fell out. If it wasn't me telling them, it was gonna be either Elbie, Ken or Kathy lol. It was a good day that's for sure. Can't wait for the next rafting, glad we get them free.

Kathy took me to the pool the next day, I was there from about one in the afternoon till she came back with Ken after work around six. Sitting in the sun, reading, swimming, nice relaxing day. Throughout the week, we've had some busy days and very nice sunny warm days, I still haven't seen the 50 degrees days, but I am happy that it's nice and warm, I'm even starting to get a tan, I won't talk too soon though, I know my skin, I'll be back to whit before long lol. Anyway, I'll blog again when something exciting happens, going to a country concert tomorrow night, so that should be good. Brian and Tara get married on Saturday arvo, but I don't think I'm gonna get there unfortunatly. Until next time, peace.

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Photos

Me & Meagan
Dancing up a storm on the podium

Do we look hungover???
Joe & Meagan on Banff Gondola

It's me
Some guy actually biked up this mountain, INSANE!!!

Comments

[Jules]

Good old Calgary!
Hey there chicky, So great to check out your blogs on here!. Good to see that Joe looked after you well in Calgary!. I love it over there!...yeeehhaaa boots and hat..im so proud of you!. anyways ill speak to you soon, love Jules xox