Advertisement
Published: July 19th 2006
Edit Blog Post
Boys @ cowboys
Abe, Matt, Brandon, Mukul & just another random chick who snuck in... Goodness me, I'm tired.
Fair dinkum these people just keep stepping up night after night to go out, dance, party and mostly get drunk. 10 days of stampede are now over and the city has swapped cowboy hats back for suits. But it was fun while it lasted!
Hit the Roadhouse on Friday afternoon with Mukul & a couple of boys visiting from the UK (former Cavaliers players) for a Oil & Gas function. Wasn't that an eye opener! Great couple of country bands playing 'so bad they're good' hits, bar girls who leave little to the imagination giving shots out of their very ample 'assets', and bad cowboy shirts as far as the eye could see. Apparently girls come from all over to work at stampede and make a killing. Some take home 10 G for 10 days work. Not bad work if you can get it.
The amount of food & alcohol that would be consumed in those 10 days must be bloody enormous, so we felt we should at least help out, can't let any go to waste. Hit Cowboys after Roadhouse, which is kinda like going from a Mowbray RSL bingo night to the
Rodeo 1
The stampede grounds for the Bull-riding Miss-World-Beauty-contest-afterparty! If you work at Cowboys for 3 months they buy you a breast implant, after 6 months they will reimburse you for the other side... Think of it like Shep's cooking if you will, it looks pretty good but has no substance whatsoever!!!
They had some good bands, over-priced beer, some great martial-arts dancers, and on Sunday night hosted Mc Hammer. Apparently he stunk. Suprise suprise. One thing we did do is give in to Mukul for a round of Lay-Backs. He insisted that we Matt & I couldn't possibly leave Calgary without having had a CS cowboy shooter @ Stampede, so whatelse could we do, we abliged. Then so did he, his girlfriend Crystal and Brandon. What a team.
Went to the Rodeo the next day and it was brilliant. This is what Stampede is really aboot! Around 1 million people go to the show grounds over the 10 days, mostly tourists cause the locals have seen it all before. Watched the bare-back broncho riding, cowgirl barrel races, and the bull riding. These people are clearly very brave &/or very stupid. One guy was riding a bull with his 'other hand' because he broke his prefered
one the DAY BEFORE! Another guy was back on the bronchos after breaking his leg a few weeks ago, guess what he landed on after getting thrown off... CRAZY!
They also have steer races where they ride after them, rope 'em and tie 'em. Highlight was probably the little cowboys, 3 of these these little kids grab on to a wild pony and try to control it long enough for one of them to jump on and hang on for a couple of bucks. Little kids getting dragged around the arena by a rope was fantastic, and bugger me if the little fellas all didn't get up and ride the pony! GOLD. I will add my Rodeo pics later, forgot to bring them with me today but you can check it out at http://cs.calgarystampede.com/rodeo/events/bareback.html
Went for a nice hike up to Bragg Creek (near Kananaskis Country) which is about 45 mintues out of Calgary. VERY Steep on the way up, raises about 650 metres pretty quick. It took PK, Jen & I about 1.5 hours to get up to the top of Powder Face trail, these other people were mountain biking to the top! Great little walk, nice
Matt & the CSC
The Cowboys chicks, there was a line. A BIG line... view, not sure about trying to ride up...
The Pommie Gits took us out for a nice meal Monday night down at the Eau Claire Market before they headed off to Vancouver and onward to Egypt. Off to Edmonton first thing tomorrow morning for 4 days to work with the new Canadian coach Andy Pick, and 'coach' the city mens team aginst Edmonton on the weekend (I'm not really coaching much, just like the shirt they gave me...).
Despite all the drinking and eating I have managed to drop about 5kg in the past month, running everyday, averaging 50-60kms a week, just so many fantastic places to run here & 17 hours of sunlight helps... Canada cup U18 tournament is coming up quickly (early Aug) which will be a great experience. Missing F.E Friday footy night out at Longford, but did manage to catch the Blues getting pumped by kangas the other week. Great. At least we are good for a win this weekend, you will soon owe me 2 flats Shepherd.
Thanks for the messages, they're always nice to get. Have met some wonderful people here and made some great friends but I'm looking forward to
seeing you guys before to long, hope everyone is well.
Until next time...
Advertisement
Tot: 0.044s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 7; qc: 24; dbt: 0.0263s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1mb