We should throw a party for your shoes and invite your pants down

---

The Calgary Stampede Parade has always been on my bucket list. I lie, it hasn’t but we thought we’d get up and go check it out anyway. After finding a park in town we made our way towards the strip where it would be taking place. There were a few places giving out free breakfasts, but due to the smell of horse shit emanating from the parade I gave it a miss.

The parade was pretty impressive, and obviously something the locals take pride in. This was typified by a large rotund man sitting in front of us who at every chance would say to people in the parade “Welcome to Caaaalgaaaaaaaaary”. Nic and I laughed the first few times we heard this, after about a hundred times we were ready to throttle the guy.

I won’t go on about the entries in the parade you can obviously see them from the photos. I will just mention my favourites - the former Miss Calgary Stampede’s from over the ages float, and not because they were good looking but because they were mostly little old ladies waving hysterically with their pants way too high. Do women pull their pants higher and higher as they get older or are they shrinking? Someone do a thesis for me.

The other highlights were seeing old men hooning around on horses and in miniature planes and cars like they were kids again, they were loving it.

The afternoon was spent getting supplies for our trip, watching Wimbledon on TV and we bought tickets for the Calgary chuck wagon racing for the day we would get back from our roadtrip. This is not really a news worthy, but it could have been. I wanted to murder the lady selling us the tickets. People in those industries should not be incompetent old ladies. They belong in the parade.

---