Road trip to Calgary

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June 17th 2005

Published: June 20th 2005

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WoznBec

Mike and Kristina

We thought we should give you a picture of the infamous Mike and Kristina so you can picture who we are talking about....

So its been a little while since we have written an entry about our adventures! To be honest we haven't had to many adventures as there has been rain, snow and a little more rain, we are looking at close to 3 weeks of solid rain, drizzle and snow!!! This has been a little difficult to get used to considering how dry it is back home...

Any way what have we been up to i hear you ask...

Last week we took a road trip to Calgary with Mike and Kristina. The trip was a bit of a last minute hey we all have 2 days off together lets go to Calgary spur of the moment type decision (we only decided 2 nights before that we would go)! The day before we were leaving we had an idea of renting a car from Banff and driving on to Calgary - might work out cheaper and it would be a WHOLE lot quicker and more convenient. So we madly made phone calls and checked internet sites and hired a car. We still had to be up super early after working late the night before but we didn't complain to much

The Hire Car

Here is the car we used for our little road trip - A Pontiac Grand AM

😊 we booked our accomodation at a sister hotel and were set. Each of us were looking forward to numerous things with the trip - a bath, fluffy towels, TV, a real steak we could actually chew and cut with a propper knife!! The freedom to drive ourselves without being stuck on a bus with a bunch of other people. Any way we arrive in Banff a little sleepy but eager to start our little road trip. We picked the car up with relative ease - Mike was assigned to be the driver since he knew how to drive on the wrong side of the road, and had the night off. We packed the car with our overnight belongings and as is normally done i Australia headed to Maccas to grab some breakkie for the long trip in! All is going well so far, we had a brand new Pontiac "grand am" - a little squishy in the back seat but kristina and I are only skinny minnies so we managed alright. We had some food in our bellies and were ready to get rolling.

It was then that we figured out that we didn't really know how to

The dispute over 1st place

Calgary Olympic park - used for the winter olympics in 1988. The events held here were ski jump, mens and ladies bobsled and louge

get to Calgary as we had all come on the bus (woz and I very jet lagged) and we came in the opposite direction, plus we didn't have a detailed map of Calgary only a little tourist one for downtown... Ahh it can't be that hard we figured, we are in a tourist town so signs to the major towns/ cities should be well marked! We headed onto the Trans Canada highway towards Calgary and yes it was well marked. The drive out of the rockies was not very eventful, we hoped that we might at least see some wildlife feeding on the side of the road, elk or even the ellusive bear! But no such luck it was raining so i guess the animals don't like the rain just like humans get sick of it after a while!

So after driving for about and hour and a half we hit the outskirts of Calgary / rocky mountain foothills. Its only 10am and we can't check into the hotel until noon, we decide to kill some time by visiting the Calagy Olympic park - Peg the bus driver said something about it being impressive and it sure looks it

The new louge "summer" champions

Mike and Woz on the combined louge/ bobsled track minus the ice

from the side of the road so what the heck we are tourists so lets do the tourist thing. We turn off the main highway onto a road that we think should take us close to the park if not at least in the right direction, we can see it and from the vague map we have it looks like all streets link up, so lets take it and see where we end up!

We turned and drove up the hill a little bit past the RV park and the road starts to head back out of town, we follow it for a little bit and when it starts to turn into a rubble road we decide to find a safe spot to turn around cause this doesn't really look like it heads inthe direction we want to go.... so we are almost turned around when this out of control truck comes flying around the corner heading straight for us ...... luckily Mike is able to finnish turning the car around quickly so we don't have an accident, (the truck wasn't that out of control but he was travelling fast!) so anyway we aren't even on his side of

Check the height of the bend

this would be really scary when you are going fast. Where do i sign up????

the road and he starts tooting his big truck horn waving his fist out the window and yelling at us as we are driving away!!! Guess truckies aren't to friendly out this neck of the woods! we all have a bit of a laugh and decide not to venture off many side roads unless they look like no trucks are going travel down them! So back onto the main highway and we can still see the Ski jumps in the distance to our right, a little bit further up the road there is another intersection which has a sign pointing to the olympic park and take this one. A few minutes later we get to the park.....

We don't actully do a tour around the park as it is $10 each to walk around it yourself and we are all being tightasses so we decide to take some happy snaps on the podium, we admire from a distance the jumps and little bit of the bobsled track and head somewhere else, but this was not to be the last we saw of the olympic park....

We head into downtown Calgary semi blindly trying to find the hotel, Woz

Start of the ladies run

I know how the Jamaicans felt in cool runnings!! This track is pretty impressive and we were only 1/2 way up!

and I have a bit of an idea where it is as it is just around the corner from where we stayed on our first night in Canada. Any way the 2 boys were in the front of the car and lets just say that there is a reason that i will be navigating when we finally get back to Aus and have enough money to start to race our buggy! We find the hotel ok but it is still to early to check in so Kristina is hanging for some shops, the tourist map we have points out a couple of shopping centres (malls) so Woz and Mike try navigating their way to one that doesn't seem to far away....... after about 45mins of driving past the same bridge numerous times and heading past several towns that aren't listed on the map we manage to convince the boys to head back to the hotel so we can check in and walk to the centre of town and shop there, we can always hit the shopping centre tomorrow.

We manage to wind our way back to the hotel and checkin. Our room is fabulous, there are beds that don't

Fancy a jump

the big and little jumps, you can't really tell how big they are but they are huge the little one is about 70m high!!!

have dips in the middle of them, lots of fluffy towls and a HUGE shower, we immediatley check out the pool and spa (hot tub) and decide that we need some food and then we can go for a swim. We walk to the main shopping strip via a few scenic parts of town - we see a "shave for a cure" style head shaving activity run by the local police and fire brigade there was a girl having her hair completly shaved off it was a decent lenght too. (This is where the police hummer truck was) We walk through the Human staue park which is interesting if you look at the photos!

The mall area is great there are so many people out and about for a friday afternoon, there are little street stalls, performers, buskers, heaps of peole just wondering around and generally enjoying themselves on a rare sunny day. We head to the food court eat some good old fashioned takeaway food and discover the indoor tropical gardens. We are really excited to walk through this novel idea but are dissapointed to find out it is shut for a private function. Oh well we will

Beer Land

One for the fellas!

have to return the next day - which we do. It is cool, the top floor of a section of the shopping centre is full of trees, ponds that have fish and turtles in them, birds, flowers all just like a tropical garden.

That afternoon there is a huge hail storm and the rain continues - how unusual 😊 anyway we have a nap then go for dinner at a pub/ steakhouse, then back to the hotel for a swim.

Next day is the day of the carshow but we have all day to fill in before it starts at 3pm. So after we have been to the gardens and had something to eat we go and find the shopping centre that has Wal mart in it this time we are able to find the shopping centre as the boys take the right road. Wal mart is bacsically just like Big W back home with a few more grocey items. We stock up with some snacks and juice and continue my search for a big bag of peanut butter M&M's (I have been searching since we got to north america for a big bag), which they don't stock

Our room in Calgary

small but comfortable with a HUGE shower!

they do however have a decent size bag of peanut butter smarties which I have to try - much to my dissapointment they are not as good as M&M's. We still have some time to kill before the car show and decide to go cruising the neighbourhood, thisis where we discover Eminem waiting for the bus. He is sheltering from the comming storm in a bus shelter..... anyway we head to the Stampede grounds with a few more detours and see the main stadium which is HUGE there is no way you are aloud to back your ute up to the fence at this rodeo!

The car show is alright it was for all the done up imports, there were heaps and heaps of Hondas here for some reason Canadians are obsessed with them. (if anyone is interested in looking at some of the photos we can send them to you just let us know) There were also some Hummers and other cool cars but not many. After 1 1/2 hours we have seen everything and head out. We once again entrust the boys navigating to get us back to Banff. We are doing alright until the road turns

Room with a view

into residentail - we have heaps of time to kill so decide to have a look at what housing is like, we have no real idea where we are but know that sooner or later we will hit the main highway as we can still see it and are still heading in the right direction towards the mountains. imagine our supprise when all of a sudden the road comes to an end but there is an open gate that leads to the olympic park!? So ofcourse we have to go and have a look, the gate is oopen and there is noone there so why not? Well the road leads to the back of the ski jumps and they are Gigantic! we thought they were big from the bottom but wait until you get to the top and have a look. We kept driving and saw the start of the men's bobsled but couldn't really see the track so we kept driving. When we got to the Women's start there was a little spot for us to park the car and have a look at the track it was huge! the walls are so steeply banked, when you see them

Looking at downtown Calgary with the spire

on TV they look big but don't seem that bad but when you see them in real life you can appreciate the skills and nerves these guys and girls have. To say the least it was really impressive!

Anyway i guess i should stop rambling - we headed back to Banff and then onto Lake Louise and had an uneventful drive home. Until the next installment from the adventures of Bec and Woz keep smiling, be safe and keep sending us those emails!!

Cheers 😊

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