Advertisement
Published: September 21st 2013
Edit Blog Post
DSC07311
Autumn colours in Calgary Beautiful sunny day here in Calgary - cool in the morning but reached a maximum of 25 degrees C. Just perfect. We were straight out of the Casino carpark before
7.30am.
We were off to visit the Heritage Park historical museum and Gasoline Alley this morning so we dove there, parked at the marina - had breakfast and did a tidy up of the RV before going over to the park.
When we went to purchase our admission tickets we were advised that the park was closed on week days now that it was fall and only open weekends. A kind volunteer felt sorry for us and let us in to explore the place. It was great as we had the place to ourselves. We checked out the historical village and it's surrounds. We couldn't go into the historic houses around the village but we got a good feel for the place. It would have been even better if all the attractions had been open but we're not complaining.
Heritage Park is Canada's largest living historical park and when open costumed interpreters play out the daily dramas of the pioneer community. The park is home to 180 shops
DSC07312
Heritage Park and buildings. Gasoline Alley had a fine display of perfectly resorted automobiles and a grand selection of various gas pumps from the early years. Calgary is not the capital of Alberta (Edmonton is) but it certainly is extremely busy. The highways near the city centre are congested all day long.
There are over 1million people living in Calgary - lucky they don't have to go more than about 1.5 hours to be in the wilderness areas of Banff and Lake Louise. Calgary fell victim to severe flooding earlier this year and you can see visible sections of roads and public areas that are still being repaired.
From Heritage Park we decided to visit the Big Rock Brewery. It was about a 10km drive but it took ages due to the traffic - then when we found the place, it was closed for renovations! Moved onto the next item on our agenda - Fort Calgary. Another long slow drive but at least it was open when we arrived. Admission was $12 each for a self guided tour.
Fort Calgary is a national historic site. The fort was the city's first building and was built by the North West
DSC07405
Gasoline Alley Mounted Police. We watched a short video about the mounted police and then had a ball taking photos of ourselves dressed up as mounted police. The displays were very well laid out and gave us a good idea of what life was like for the mounted police in the early days. Well worth a visit.
Due to traffic congestion we had to fight on the roads we decided to get back on the road and say goodbye to Calgary. Traffic wasn't our only problem in this city - it was difficult to park the RV anywhere. The city of Calgary is definetly not an RV friendly city.
Leaving Calgary this evening gives us an extra day to use some place else. All part of the adventure. Out on the open highway we were back into wide open plain lands and huge farming lots. Although this part of the trip is a 700km drive to a place called Moose Jaw in the province of Saskatchewan with not a lot to see it gives us another insight into the diversity of Canada.
Flying in and out of cities just doesn't give you the same feel for places. It's hard
DSC07316
Gasoline alley to believe that 24 hours ago we were in a wilderness forest and now the landscape is the complete opposite. We pulled over into a Walmart carpark in the city of Brook around
9pm - cooked dinner, uploaded photos and into bed - ready for a long drive tomorrow.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.069s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 10; qc: 27; dbt: 0.0359s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Kay
non-member comment
Love the Autumn colours great Mounties they have over there !