[trip style = urban + weekend getaway]
Fourteen days before the start of "The Greatest Outdoor Show on Earth," Alberta flooded. Yet a tidal wave of water wasn't going to rock landlocked Calgary's virtual boat. Within a few days of the flood, the Calgary Stampede's Chairman proclaimed "come hell or high water, the show will go on." And it is, right now {July 5 - 14, 2013}.
I just spent last weekend at the 10-day show's get-go. To a non-local, you'd never know rain had ravaged the city only two weeks prior. Aside from the planned Saddledome concerts---Dixie Chicks, Kiss, Tim McGraw, Carly Rae Jepsen---which could not go on due to flooding cresting the 8th row, and the still-wet food court area in the basement of the Big Four venue, the grounds don't even look damp.
This is due to 24-hour crews of workers called upon from all over North America to repair and rebuild the rodeo without taking resources away from Calgary's clean-up effort. Over 220 dump trucks hauled away 88 million pounds of spoiled soil on the Stampede's just-finished infield and repaired it in a week---a job that took three weeks to complete in the Spring. A sea of water was sucked out of every space, and flash-dried with the gale force of a 1000+ industrial dryers.
2013 marked my first Stampede {as did a shooter of pickle juice, one of this year's fair foods!}. It will not be my last. Just call me a converted cowgirl. To put it lightly, I had a buckin' blast.
Photos To start off, here's a two-minute video the Stampede put together showing the park's near-miracle transformation over 14 days.
The rodeo's start.
Wrangler.
Bare bronc. (I was happy to learn both the athletes and the animals have free access to a full range of medical practitioners at this invite-only competition.)
Ladies barrel racing.
Behind the chutes.
Bull riding sequence.
In Canada we say yahoo, not yeehaw, apparently.
Start of the chuckwagon races.
Chuckwagon race to the finish.
Fair food, 101.
line one: free roadside flapjack*, deep-fried bubble gum, deep-fried Pop-Tart
line two: deep-fried Oreos, the center of deep-fried Oreos, pickle juice shooter
line three: deep-fried butter, choco-dipped bacon-on-a-stick, deep-fried Doritos
*over one million free pancakes are handed out all over the city during Stampede
[photos by @tripstyler, snapped while a guest of stampede]