Calgary Stampeding

Yesterday morning after a leisurely cup of coffee and chat with Matt, I climbed back aboard the rig and headed out onto the Trans-Canada westbound once again.  Brooks beckoned, and as I mentioned in my last note I had a stop at Rotten Ronnie's for a taste of their free WiFi.

Phoning home later in the day to get the street address for Gabrielle and Clarence, I learned that their ETA in Calgary was 9 pm.  This was not too congruent with my ETA of 5 pm or so, but I figured that I could call a couple old friends who also live in Cowtown.

IMAGINE my surprise when I learned that, first of all, pay phones are a dying breed, and secondly that pay phones, if one is fortunate enough to locate one, do NOT have local phone books any more.  Seeing as I did not have phone numbers for my friends, that made it somewhat tricky to call them.

So I found the home of my sister-in-law and her husband, and decided that pizza would be a good idea.  I "COULD" have called with my cell phone for delivery to my camper.  Indeed I SHOULD have done so.......but instead I drove, with Bitchin' Betty the GPS voice screaming directions at me.  She took me directly into the aftermath of a Calgary football game at McMahon stadium.  THOUSANDS of pedestrians clogged the streets, even the four lane 80 kph main roads, and vehicular traffic was INSANE.  The Calgary Stampede, I have deduced, is what happens after a football game.  I very nearly avoided half a dozen collisions, all of which would have been a lot more than a fender bender.  So I got the hell out of Dodge and waited an hour before I ventured back out to the streets.

Returning to the street outside my SIL/BIL, I found that my extension cord DID reach their external plug-in, so I had shore power, and awaited their return whilst reading and enjoying a couple drinks.  They arrived home around 10 pm, and we had a camp-fire in their back yard, enjoyed a few stories, and I had a MARVELLOUS sleep on an MAGNIFICENT bed.

My laptop once again had no connectivity here - what's up with everybody securing their WiFi signal, anyways?  So I am using Clarence's machine to dash off a few notes and scribble these thoughts while they are fresh.  Shortly it will be saddle time and tonight's destination is Jasper.

Doug