Visiting Alberta: Calgary Stampede

The Calgary Stampede celebrated its 100 year anniversary this year. Named the "Greatest Outdoor Show on Earth", the stampede was definitely an event to remember.  It kinda reminded me of Toronto's Exhibition, but about 20x better.

To sum it up in a few words, we watched many amazing shows, experienced the famous rodeo, had some great food, heard fun music, won cool prizes, watched the most intense fireworks ever and sported our cowboy hats with pride...

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police had their "Musical Ride" performance before the Rodeo began. It was a very beautiful show with extremely talented horses and riders doing some very intricate formations!

We didn't get any great pictures, but here is a little idea of their synchronization.

Plaid shirts and cutoffs were mandatory stampede attire. Hats are always expected, no questions asked.

Such a lovely family playing their violins together in the park. So many people sat around with ice cream cones and listened to them play some happy tunes. They were so cute and very good!

By no means does this picture show what we experienced while watching the grand stand show, and boy was it spectacular. I have never seen such an elaborate fireworks show in my life and I can't see any other show living up to this one. We got to watch fireworks three nights in a row, two of them being form my dad's condo windows. He is on the 18th floor of his building and we got a panoramic view of the entire city through the wall of windows. There were synchronized firework shows going on in 5 different parts of the city, at the same time, going along to the same music track on the radio. It was simply surreal.

Happy travelling!

Madeline, 

xx