Calgary - rest day

Calgary – Rest day.

(oh, for more pics, find another post where there's a link to the pictures, and click on them. The Internet here is really slow and I can't get the link to add to the title).

My dad and my aunt (Lady) Diane came down from Edmonton so we could hit the big city of Calgary. It was nice to spend time with family and friends.

Calgary – after a late start, we tried to make up for it. The Glenbow Museum, where tons of Native American, Asian, and Albertan artifacts can be found. Very interesting stuff, quite amazing. Some of the Native American paintings are incredible – eerie, disturbing, beautiful, poignant. Closing time prevented us from seeing the fourth floor – mideval time artifacts, and apparently a world-renown collection of gems and stones originating from the soils of Alberta.

The Devonian Gardens was next. It is located on the top floor (indoor) of the Eaton mall downtown. It is a little oasis of multiple plants, with some waterfalls and ponds (with koi fish, turtles and such). It would be a perfect place to eat your lunch if you worked downtown everyday. Pretty neat. Although I can only imagine how much extra energy it must require to run that place. I wonder what will happen when we do hit an energy crisis in the future.

Next – I made the decision to take a taxi to the Calgary Olympic Park, where the '88 Winter Olympics were held (part of it in Canmore at the Nordic Centre, see the previous day). Cool stuff there. It looks like an amazing centre for mountain biking, skiing, bobsledding and for luge. We had fun with the luge track.

Upon our return downtown, it was the Saddledome – home of the Calgary Flames (and also a venue for the Olympics, figure skating I believe). There was not as much advertisement (player billboards, tons of flags, etc) as in Vancouver. We also got to see a great view of the dome from the Calgary Tower – where we were heading next.

With closing time in 15 minutes, we were able to go to the top of the tower. Unfortunately, the 762 steps up. The tower is 190 metres tall (530 feet or so). It was 9:30, so we could see the sunset a bit. We had a lovely view of the city all around us, and at one point, the view of the city directly below us. There is a section of the floor that is glass. Lady Di had some difficulties at first, but was able to ease her way onto the platform (for a limited time).

Food – Saltlik (could be a spelling error there) was one of the recommendations we had for great steak. Since it was downtown, and affordable (compared to $55.00 steaks at ather ritzy place), we headed there. Lovely meal. We were all in the moooooood for a great steak, and they delivered. Most of us surfed it (nothing special about the shimp, they were alright), and the baked potato was loaded with butter, sour cream, bacon, little pieces of cheddar cheese and I can't remember if there were onions too. The beer of choice for me was the only one on tap that was local – Big Rock selections (I chose the honey beer of some sort). Yes, also tasty. I still think the Grizzly Paw breweries is tops. Dessert – they had this huge New York Style cheesecake (no surprise to those who know me) with berries. Very good. Pops had a lemon tart with merringue on top, and some vanilla bean ice cream. All delicious. So, another good meal. With the trip moving into the prairies, where more camping will be done, I think a fancy meal will be some Kraft Dinner with peanut butter sandwiches. Yummy!

A late evening, but great one indeed. Tomorrow, I'm off on the road again, for a fairly long part of the trip.

Ciao,

p2