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Stampede!!!

Connie, Dougie No Comments

It’s Stampeded time in Calgary and that means the entire city channels their inner cowboy and celebrates living in the West. We decided that, as new Calgarians, it was our obligation to attend the parade with the kids. Scott had the day off work (yes, parade day is a holiday) so we headed downtown.

I was fortunate enough to be able to buy tickets for the bleachers so we didn’t need to get downtown too early though I didn’t realize that they were at the end of the parade route which meant an extra 45 minutes of waiting for the parade to start. I’ll know better next year. There were lots of folks that came through to entertain the waiting masses though so at least we weren’t staring at an empty street the whole time.

Connie in her best cowboy outfit
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She is just mastering clapping so she took every opportunity to give it a try.

The kids were so excited to be there
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Finally, the parade started. The grand marshals were Jet and Cord from the Amazing Race. These guys were, by far, my favourite Amazing Race team ever – so it was pretty exciting to see them.

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Wow, an entire float dedicated to me? What an honour. :)

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After a while, this came along.

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I thought this was just brilliant! They decorated street cleaning truck and then sent it down the road to clean up after anything the horses may have left. Dougie did not like this. I think it may have been the noise but he shrieked every time they came down the street. In an hour and a half parade, that was a lot more often than we were happy about.

Look, there’s another one.

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Hmm, he’s a little out of place here in Calgary, in the summer
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Connie just took the whole thing in.

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Nothing really scared her once the people stopped yelling “Ya hoo” as she was trying to nap.

Overall, we had a great time! We’d go again but we’d be sure to get seats closer to the start of the parade route.