Getting in touch with my inner Cowgirl

Last weekend Bryan and I went to Calgary to visit his brother and sister-in-law (Neill and Sandy), and his parents, who were also in Calgary at the time. It happened to be the weekend of the opening of the Calgary Stampede, an annual event that inexplicably induces the locals to dress up in tight Wrangler jeans, a ginormous belt buckle, cowboy boots ("Remember, you'll be stomping along the grounds for hours, so be sure to buy your cowboy boots well in advance and break them in"), and of course a cowboy hat.

I have never been to Stampede before, and Bryan hasn't been since he left Calgary 13 years ago, so we decided to spend a day getting in touch with our inner cowpersons at the Stampede. We were joined by Neill and Sandy and Bryan's parents. I flat out refused to wear a cowgirl hat (in fact none of us went to any lengths to blend in), and instead wore a Roots hat, just because its funny (nay, hilarious) for an Australian to wear a hat that says "Roots" on it.
So what is a Stampede like? Well, for the benefit of my curious Aussie friends, it's actually a lot like the Sydney Easter show, or the Perth Royal Show. The only difference is that in Australia people wear regular clothes, and there are no chuckwagon races or jousting (yes, I said jousting!). There are still the same fairground rides, hot dogs, toffee apples, farm animals etc.

So what did we do at the Stampede?

• the Tilt-a-whirl ride - my favourite non-scary ride
• one length of the park on the sky ride - basically a chair lift, but surprisingly scary...I'm not keen on heights
• visited the miniature horses and baby farm animals
• jousting
• ate junk food
• a hypnotist show (non-participating)
  
• chuckwagon racing
• Grandstand show, including singing, dancing, and Cirque du Soleil acrobats,
  
• Eukanuba superdogs
  

The Eukanuba Superdog show was the highlight of my day without a doubt. I especially liked two dogs named Tadpole and Pot Roast. Tadpole is a staffie, like my Molly, and was every bit the typical fun-loving, frisbee-chewing, bouncy-frouncy staffie. Pot Roast was a rather overweight bull dog who couldn't run very fast, but he outwitted the small yappy dogs and won the race anyway (the yappy dogs were easily distracted by other dogs, and ran in the wrong direction!).

That's all about the Stampede. It was a good day - I didn't get blisters or a sunburn, and we finished the day off with a spectacular viewing of Aurora borealis.

Sandy and Neill are expecting the pitter patter of tiny feet in January, so we may find ourselves revisiting Calgary around that time. Only in January it will be up to 70 'C cooler than it was last weekend. Umm, I'm not sure how I'm going to like that.