I am currently experiencing my first [Calgary Stampede] and I have to say what I've seen so far I've thoroughly enjoyed. I still need to properly Cowboy up though, I must do this properly at some point this week. Yesterday I went to the Stampede parade which was a 2 hour long show with the downtown full of people and effectively shut down. It was good fun, lots of marching bands, horses and strange looking floats... I think the highlight was either the [Snowbirds] flying over or a tank doing a burnout! [Here] is a video of some of the things that happened as they went passed us and a couple of pics:
After the show we braved a very packed, it was the third train that turned up that we managed to get on, C-train down to the Stampede grounds to explore what was going on. I managed to get a Stampede pack (dunno quite why I wanted one, but I'm quite pleased with the backpack), saw the [world championship blacksmith competition, some sheep shearing, some giants cows, a crazy dog show ("[Superdogs]" with its own theme music) and miniature horse [chuckwagon] racing (probably the most hilarious type of horse racing I've ever seen). I'm sure we saw lots more too and I'm hoping to go down some point in the next week to experience more of the festivities. Lots of fun and [here] is a video of some of my highlights...
The chuckwagon races in the Saddledome:
How to heard ducks:
and a Texas Longhorn:
