Calgary Stay-cation, Stampedin in Calgary

As my husband, Ken and I are volunteers for the Calgary Stampede...I thought it would be a good chance to highlight the Calgary Stampede and show people what there is to do during Stampede...whether you are from Calgary or not!

This year's Stampede was particularly amazing...

...Given the fact that we were able to recover from a flood as devastating as we had.


Parade Day, July 5th

Our committee is the Square Dance Committee which is part of the Downtown Attractions. On parade day, we are part of the "Pre-Parade" keeping the crowds entertained as they wait for the main parade. We stop along the way, and get people up to teach them how to square dance. It's hard to believe that the beginning of the parade was under water a couple of weeks before!


The streets of Calgary 2 weeks ago!


 

Getting set to go...no sign of water here!

 

 

After the parade, we went down to the Stampede Grounds to attend the 1st day of the Rodeo, again, what a difference from a couple of weeks ago!

At one point, the grandstand had water up to its 14th row!



The Stampede infield, flooded

During the two weeks after the flood and before the Stampede started, they removed all of the soggy dirt from the infield and at one point, had 1,000 dump trucks coming to replace some of the fill! By 1:00 Rodeo time on the first Friday, everything was in perfect shape!

We watched the rodeo from the infield, and took these pictures...

July 6th

The first Saturday of our square dancing on the streets of Calgary. Our stage is set up in front of the downtown Sport Check, and we teach people to square dance in the streets of Calgary every day except Sundays during Stampede.

 
 

Sunday July 7th

The first Sunday is always the famous Hays Breakfast...This is where you get to rub elbows with the who's who of Calgary (Our mayor calls it a political "petting zoo"!)



Monday July 8th

Busy day for our committee. We have to go downtown to demonstrate our square dancing at 5:50, 6:30 and 7 for Global TV!

On this day, our regular square dancing was rained out, so we waited around to do a Stampede Lunch at the Sun Life building


Tuesday July 9th

This day, we took a tour of all of the committees that are under the Downtown. Attractions .umbrella...Clowns, breakfast (free flapjacks on the street!) Rope Square Entertainment, Information and  Rigs

We met at the barns down at the Stampede Grounds. We were lucky to get on one of the rigs the 13 rigs made their way downtown to pick up the tourists that were lucky enough to have tickets for the daily ride around downtown.

 Probably the best kept secret of the Stampede, is that there are FREE horse drawn wagon rides downtown every day of Stampede (Except Sundays). You just need to stand in line at Rope Square before 8:15 (usually need to be in line by 7:30) and get a ticket to get on a wagon at 10:00 in front of the Palliser Hotel. Then they take a tour of downtown and even feed you breakfast!

Wednesday July 10th


Early morning to do our dancing for our DTA sponsor, Fluor Daniels. As they sponsor all the committees of our Downtown Attractions, we provide some of the entertainment for their breakfast.




Thursday July 11th

After our morning dancing, we headed downtown to the hospitality suite for lunch and then home for a rest before the evening Chucks and Grandstand show. This year's show was amazing!

 

 

Friday July 12th

After our dancing downtown, we went back to the hospitality suite upstairs in the downtown Legion, and then downstairs to a fundraiser for the troops called "Liquid Courage" Once again we were the entertainment, and some of us also contributed to the silent auction.

In the evening, we attended a BBQ at Heritage park put on by a client of Ken's, Graham Construction


Saturday July 13

This was our final day of dancing, followed by a wrap up lunch at the Legion

Sunday July 14th

Finally got to sleep in! The Rodeo finals were at 1, and this time, we watched them from the Grandstand.

Now, back to work! Stampeding was hard enough work (but a lot of fun!)