Crossing the Border
Crossing the border at anytime is a bit nerve wracking. The normal questions are “Where are you going, How long will you be in Canada and What do you do for a living?”. When the answer to “What do you do for a living?” is technically unemployed and traveling the customs agent sometimes does not have the best reaction. They can decide to pull us over for further questioning like one did on the North Dakota/Manitoba border. Luckily for us on the two lane road crossing that we were now on going from Montana into Alberta the agent thought it was a neat thing that we were traveling to Alaska and let us through without any issue.
Here we were on the next step of our journey. After going almost 3600 (in not exactly the straightest path) miles from Tampa to the Canadian border, we were now in for another 2000 plus miles to the Alaskan border. Our first stop in Canada was at one of the most Canadian things possible, Tim Hortons. For those that have not heard of or been to a Tim Hortons, imagine if Starbucks and Dunkin’ Donuts combined to create one massive coffee chain and if they were in every single town in the country. That is Tim Hortons in Canada. As Rochester, NY is located very near the Canadian border, Julie and I grew up with this chain and having a cup of their coffee reminded us of home. After the coffee stop and a quick lunch we continued our way north to Calgary.
As it was already late afternoon when we entered the city we decided to leave the exploring for the next day and instead went to a local grocery store to stock up on supplies before heading to our campground. Little did we know the location of our campground was going to be excellent! We had chosen to stay at the Calgary West Campground as it was only about 20 minutes or so from downtown Calgary. The campground was set on a large hill right next to the 1988 Winter Olympics bobsled run! Growing up as a child in the 1990’s I had seen the movie “Cool Runnings”, the story of the Jamaican bobsled team more times than I could count and it was pretty neat to be at a campground in view of the track. After setting up camp, making dinner we relaxed the rest of the evening after the eventful day.
Exploring the Calgary Tower & Downtown Calgary
The next day we woke up ready to explore Calgary. As we were only 20 minutes or so away from downtown and wasn’t sure of the parking situation in the city we opted to take an Uber into the city. One of the main tourist attractions in the city is the Calgary Tower. Much like Seattle’s space needle or Toronto’s CN tower, the Calgary tower is an observation tower standing 626 feet tall. For a short time it was the tallest building in Canada although this only lasted a few years before Toronto’s tower was built. We bought our tickets at the base and within a few minutes we were zooming up to the top in one of the towers elevators.
The view from the top of the tower was pretty awesome. It gave you a 360 view of the entire city. To the north, south, and east you could see the plains of the Canadian heartland and to the west you could see the towering peaks of the Canadian Rocky Mountains. Everywhere you looked was a breathtaking sight. As the tower was now one of the older buildings in the downtown area some of the views were blocked by newer buildings but for the most part every angle provided an unobstructed view for miles in the distance. Once we were done looking around we headed back down to the base of the tower and had a look around the gift shop. While we didn’t find any trinkets that we wanted Julie did find a pamphlet about tourist walking tours. None caught our eye until we reached the last page where there was an ad for a beer & bbq tour. This was right up our alley. We called and were told that we were in luck. They had one going on that evening with two spots left available. We said we would take it!
From the tower we headed over to downtown Calgary’s pedestrian area, Stephen Avenue. The last time I was in Calgary was 2007 and I was pleasantly surprised that the area looked as nice as I had remembered. We walked up and down the street checking out a few stores before popping into the James Joyce Irish Pub for lunch. I had done the same thing on my visit to the city previously. It felt pretty good to relive old memories. After lunch we felt like a little dessert so we looked up a chocolate shop and found one called Coppeneur. We both picked out a few and needless to say left with smiles on our faces.
It was in this area that we learned that Calgary was a cowboy town. Much like Kansas City, Denver & Houston in the USA, Calgary was known as a town where beef is king as there were huge ranches on the very outskirts of the city. Every summer the city hosted “Stampede” where rodeo’s as well as massive parties happened. Unfortunately for us we were a few weeks early but we did still see the occasional person with a cowboy hat strolling around town.
Calgary’s 17th Avenue Retail & Entertainment District
As we had a few hours to kill before our tour started we headed over to the cities 17th Avenue Retail & Entertainment District. Our friend Adrian from Toronto (and the person that came up with our “Cruisin’ with the Careys” name) had recently been to the city and had told us that this was a fun street. He was right; it was a fun street! It was Saturday early afternoon and the sidewalks were packed. People were shopping, walking their dogs, hanging out on restaurant patio’s having brunch. It was a really cool scene. Adrian had said that his favorite spot was a restaurant/brewery called Trolley 5. While the patio was a bit too packed to sit at we found a spot at the bar and sat down. While sitting down I thought that “Trolley 5” is a bit of an odd name for a restaurant. Turns out that Calgary used to have streetcars and Trolley #5 had at one point crashed into the building, hence the restaurants name. After a small bite to eat and a beer it was time to go meet up with our tour for the evening.
Beer & BBQ Tour with Walk the YYC
We walked back to the base of the Calgary Tower and met up with the owners of the company, husband and wife Brian & Emily as well as their business partner Jess. All of their tours (Walk the YYC) started from this spot. We found out that Emily was going to be our guide and before long the other two in our group showed up. They were Max & Elena, two coworkers from Russia who had just landed two hours prior. They were in town for an oil conference and thought this would be a good start to their trip. Julie and I couldn’t believe that they still had the energy to go on a tour after flying from the middle of Russia to Calgary. We had to hand it to them; they were troopers.
Julie & I had been on beer tours all over the USA and Canada but this was one turned out to be one of the best. For one thing this one included stops at BBQ restaurants. None of the other tours included food and this one had my favorite type of food. Lastly the people were great! Julie and I have traveled all over North America and a good portion of the world but we had never had the opportunity to meet and talk with anyone from Russia before. As we got to know Elena & Max we found out that Max was Elena’s boss and Elena was an English translator amongst other things for the company and it was her first time in North America. Now on to the beer! We had no idea that Calgary’s beer scene was so big. Our first stop was in the Inglewood neighborhood at the Cold Garden Beverage Company. The place was packed and looked as if someone had gone to a summertime garage sale, picked out everything from garden gnomes to pink flamingo’s and threw it all over the walls and ceilings. To say this place was eclectic would be an understatement. We each had a really good flight of beer before moving on. Next was our first BBQ spot at Paddys’ BBQ & Brewery where we all split a tasting platter of food as well as a flight of their beers. From there we went to Banded Peak Brewing followed by Born Colorado Brewery. By this point we were all getting hungry again so we went to one last BBQ & Brewery Prairie Dog Brewing. Unfortunately though we arrived a bit late (it was 10pm) and they had run out of BBQ! We had instead a few sides and a flight of their beers. We were also able to tour their kitchen and their humongous red smoker. It was a sight to see. All in all we had an amazing time with Max, Elena & Emily of Walk the YYC. We would 100% recommend this tour (or any of their tours) if you are visiting Calgary. Before leaving for the night we got Elena’s information and she told us that if we ever want to come visit in Russia she would be happy to show us around. Hopefully we can take her up on her offer sometime soon!
Kensington Road Neighborhood
The next day we woke up a bit later (and slower) than usual, had a good breakfast and headed out for the day. We first drove over to the Kensington Road neighborhood and stopped at Riley Park. It was a beautiful Sunday and it seemed that everyone in the neighborhood was out enjoying themselves. Families were out with their kids on the playground, people were playing Frisbee or just sunning themselves in the early summer sun. After walking around for a bit we stumbled upon a cricket match! After doing a bit of research we found out that the cricket ground had been part of the park when it was established in the early 1900’s. We watched for a bit and talked with one of the other spectators who seemed to be one of the coaches. He explained the rules a bit and when we told him that we were visiting from Florida told us that there were a few teams in the Miami area to go check out when we got back home. This was pretty neat to see live as I had only seen cricket on TV before. We watched for a while more before continuing our walk.
From Riley Park we continued on our way into the neighborhood stopping into a few shops and bookstores. Around this time we got hungry and as we were feeling like soup we stopped into Pho Houz Vietnamese Kitchen. We each got a big bowl of pho, which we really enjoyed. We then hit the street again going into the residential area checking out the houses before making our way back to Bubbles and the campground. We relaxed the rest of the day before going to bed a bit early and having a great nights rest. Tomorrow we would be heading into the mountains!
Next up….The Canadian Rocky Mountains & Banff National Park!
