Rally: First day

Up bright and early and heading for the city of Calgary on a tour bus with the rest of the people on the rally. Today we are going to see some of the sites of the city. First stop, the Calgary Tower that is 525 ft tall. It takes and elevator 62 seconds to reach the top. It is like several other towers you may be familiar with such as the Stratosphere in Las Vegas and the Space Needle in Seattle. From there we went to Rope Park where they were serving pancakes and bacon, for free, to everyone who showed up. They were cooking pancakes on the back of the chuckwagons that they use in the Calgary Stampede chuckwagon races. They were also serving the same thing at several places in the downtown area. They do this every day of the rodeo from 9 am to noon. We then walked to the Glenbow museum which is a history museum for the province of Alberta. We took in one floor of three and it took about two hours. Back on the bus and heading for the Canada Olympic Park site of the 1988 Winter Olympics. We had a very nice lunch there. Then we took a tour of the park including and indoor practice facility where they practice starts for the luge, bob sleigh and skeleton races. Next we went to the 90-meter ski jump observation deck. This is the level from which the athletes started. With the advances in ski jumping equipment the tower is now obsolete for jumping but they have a zip line that you can ride. It is 510 meters long and falls 110 meters. At the end you are doing 40 mph. After the tower we went to the Canada Olympic Museum which is dedicated to all of the Canadian athletes who have taken part in the winter Olympic games. That was the end of the day and it was back on the bus for the trip back to the RV park. Fortunately, the forecasted rain waited until we were back at the park. Tomorrow we head for the rodeo, Yeha!!