Day 60 - Touring Calgary

Today was a short travel day as we moved out of Banff and over to Calgary.  It was also another day shifting gears as we left nature and headed back to visit a city atmosphere.  

Despite a relaxing day yesterday, the weather was wonderful and we all slept in until 8 AM.  We may have slept longer, but we were again awoken with the sounds of RVs starting up as everybody left - presumably racing to beat the crowds to somewhere in the park.  For us, our trend of slow starts continued and we repeated a bit of yesterday with some creatively shaped pancakes for breakfast.


Rather than explore any further in Banff, we decided to explore Calgary so we skipped the morning hike, packed up camp, and hit the road.  We set the GPS for the Calgary Zoo!  It wasn’t long before the scenic mountains with peaks above the tree line disappeared and we found ourselves suddenly in the open plains.  It felt like I was driving across Nebraska all over again.  But before the plains appeared, we were left with some great scenery



As we continued eastward down the road, I pointed out the roller coaster sticking up in the air to Robinson and we realized that was our campsite for the evening, Calaway Park!  So, we quickly pulled over and asked if we could do an early check in to drop off Dover.  They said it wasn’t an issue so we found our spot, unhitched Dover and got back on the road to Calgary.


As we continued into town on HIghway 1, we were treated to an excellent view of the ski jumps from the Olympics.  This marked our 3rd Winter Olympic village (Calgary was 1988) that we had driven past on this trip alone.  While we had driven past the others, this one had the best view of the jumps.  Every time I drive by one of these structures, I’m amazed that there are humans that are willing to say “Sure, I’ll jump off of that on skis”.  


A few minutes later, we made it to the zoo.  The zoo is a terrific zoo, though it too has another semi-confusing layout.  It also had an abnormally large dinosaur section, but I guess Alberta is the home of fossils so it makes sense.  It was also very educational with good information on each exhibit.  


Some of the other highlights of the zoo included

  • The topiary exhibit.  It was amazing

  • Moose!


  • Hippos basking in the sun



  • Some other random bonuses including the scariest thing I might have seen - Sebastian driving!








Because the science museum was so close (nearly the same parking lot), we went to the science museum even though it was closing in an hour.  One of the bonuses included in admission was free Omnimax movies.  I love these so I convinced everybody else to go in and watch the movie about caves.  It was about a woman who uses cave samples to determine changes in climate from the past.  In my opinion, it was great!


After the movie, Sebastian and Amy sped walked through the rest of museum to see what they could find.  Sebastian was brave and did the bed of nails!


Robinson spent his time outside trying out the massive slide and playground.


We wanted some dine-in pizza for dinner and found Gus’s.  It was a delicious pizza with a crumbly crust.  Maybe it was just that we had walked the zoo and run through the museum, but that pizza disappeared quickly.


Before heading back to camp, we needed some more groceries so we stopped at “Real Canadian Superstore”.  It felt like Sam’s Club so we were worried we needed a membership, but after asking some of the locals, it turns out it’s just a big grocery store.  There were some bulk items though so that was fun to joke about having in the camper.  “Of course we need 10 lb of margarine!”. Sebastian also found the rare - double banana.




From there we headed back to camp to set up Dover.  The boys were SUPER helpful so it went up fast.  As a reward, we did another episode of Simpsons together.  Then, as the sun started to fall, the boys met up with some of the other kids in camp for a soccer game on the large lawn that was part of camp.  It was great to watch them have a good time with the others.


As we got ready for bed and came back from brushing teeth, Robinson found a great spot for star-gazing and noticed the Blood Moon as it came up.  It looked like the sun was setting in the east!  With the terrific weather, we left the walls open a bit and so we could watch the moon rise as we all went to sleep. 

Total miles - 9,299

# States/Provinces - 16 / 2


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