This is the 3rd post of 3 from the August long weekend.

Erin’s dad and brother went on a 120km hike for 10 days or so and we were their designated people to pick them up. So instead of the busy 3 hour trip up the number 2 we took the roundabout way through the mountains. It took 10 or so hours but lots of nice views!

After picking Erin’s dad and brother up at the icefields centre, on our way to Rocky Mountain House we stopped at Whirlpool point. Near the whirlpool is Alberta’s oldest tree which is over 1000 years old. I took some pictures of it and the area around it. On the way back we also saw a small black bear munching on some grass. I didn’t get any pictures of it. Some people were doing their best to try to get a physical from the bear.

See pictures below Continue reading Oldest Tree in Alberta →

This is post 2 of 3 from the August long weekend.

On the Saturday we went to the Calgary Zoo. It was a nice day, hot but not too hot.

Lucky for us maybe but not for Jaclyn she had to work that day. We got to hear her do a talk about the elephants, touch some elephant poo that was covered and hold part of a tusk. Tusks weigh a lot!

Jaclyn also showed Erin and I around the butterflies and the caterpillar tree.

We then got to follow Jaclyn as she set up for a bat presentation. She gave a little talk and would answer people’s questions while showing Sundar. She was a nice big fruit bat.

It was a nice day at the zoo we got to see some neat things. A tiger was running, a tiger sleeping with his feet up in the air and looking very happy. The male lion was roaring and moved around a little bit. Grizzly and black bears were moving around and taking a bath.

See part 1 photos below. Click on one of the photos to see them all Continue reading Calgary Zoo →

This is post 1 of 3 from the August long weekend.

Friday after working half the day and lunch, Erin and I drove down to Strathmore. We got to see the same storm twice. Once when we were driving through Airdie. The rain was very big and close to hailing. It was very dark. Just as we got to Strathmore it started to storm again. We hid in the shelter of the grandstand while it rained. The temperature dropped a lot. It cleared up pretty quickly and we dried our seats off and had good weather for the rest of it. It was a little cool in the grandstand.

The rodeo went well. The announcers talk non stop and there was lots of events I hadn’t seen before. Like teams try to catch a wild horse, put a saddle on it and ride it. Kids had to do something with a pony. The animals didn’t always want to go back out of the ring providing laughs for everyone.

The chuckwagons were very exciting as always. There were some very close races and just general chaos as they go around the barrels.

See below for photos.
For most of the photos, I fixed them up a bit and there is a cropped and non cropped version of them.
Continue reading Strathmore Heritage Days →