We drove to a town just outside of Calgary, to stay with our friends Sandra and Rene. We met them on the Viking River Cruise - exactly two years ago. Airdrie is a great little town.. a geographical oddity *, 8 minutes away from everything.
The night we arrived, we were treated to a very large, absolutely delicious salmon dinner, grilled outside on not one, but two, hand soaked cedar planks.
The next day we went to the well known town of Drumheller, where the hoodoos are internationally recognized. Hoodoos are rock formations composed of sand and clay, where the strong capstones protect the underlying base and create a unique mushroom-like shape.
There are multiple descriptions for the origin of the name “hoodoo”. The one presented in Drumheller states it originates from a West African word and used by Aboriginals to refer to evil, supernatural forces. These structures certainly did not look evil to me, but definitely mysterious and magical.
David ordered buffalo wing flavored poutine that actually tasted good. Of course, for me, adding jalapenos to any dish is an improvement.We ate a picnic lunch, then headed to the Royal Tyrell Museum of Paleontology. This is an incredible museum collection of more than 130,000 fossils, including the Dinosaur Hall, with over 40 mounted dinosaur skeletons. The actual head of the T-Rex had to be placed on the ground (a cast was made for the display) because it was so big and heavy. I was mostly surprised by how many of these artifacts were authentic, original fossils. We spent several hours here, wandering through the 3.9 billion year history of life on Earth.
We emerged from the museum, took a quick hike to a scenic overlook, then headed back to Airdrie. Incidentally, it is pronounced Air-dree, not Air-dry. We gave our hosts a break from cooking and went to the nearby Canadian Brewhouse.
Things did not slow down on Saturday. We went to downtown Calgary and up to the Calgary Tower. It used to be the highest point in town, but now there are a couple of skyscrapers that have surpasses it in height. Sandra pointed out lots of the landmarks, from 191 meters (627 feet) up in the air. She really was a superb guide. We had lunch up In the restaurant and got to watch Calgary spin by while we dined.
After lunch, we chanced the weather and took our bikes for a leisurely bike ride along the meandering Bow River. It rained off and on but we did manage to see quite a few of the Wild Country Roses (Provincial flower of Alberta).
Later that afternoon we took a walk around the lake behind their house. It’s hard to imagine the lake frozen over in winter when this day was warm and the ducks were out swimming. Saturday night we stayed up late partying and laughing with several friends and neighbors of Sandra and Rene’s.
Sunday morning we were treated to a pancake breakfast feast! Then we went for a luge ride at the Skyline Luge! This was a blast. Everyone gets their own luge and you get to zoom down a track at your own speed. It’s kind of like the track in Breckenridge but on this one, you get to steer it yourself, go around barricades and sharp turns and you can pass by the slower people.
After the luge - we headed off to Banff!
Teaser: Next posting will have some truly AMAZING pictures of nature.
* favorite line borrowed from the movie “O Brother Where Art Thou”
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