Carriage House Inn Calgary

... just stared at us for a while. Not a problem as we were up and gone early the next day to Royal Tyrrell Museum.


The museum was a fascinating look at the development of the earth, not only during the age of dinosaurs, but during the Age of Mammals and the Ice Age. Of course there were plenty of cool dinosaur fossils and bones too, including Tyrannosaurus Rex, Velociraptors and Triceratops, but there was a Charles Darwin exhibit, as well as interpretive walking trails ...

... you can spend a day wandering and looking around. I resisted the majority of the junk food in the place, but fell prey to a peperoni cheeze stick when I went looking for a drink.
I had hoped to meet some friends at the concert, but they couldn't make it, so I went solo. No worries, it's the Stampede, lots of people out to have a good time. The concert was great fun. I'll attach a few video clips I took. Check out Devine Brown!

Well, here we go for another round.... This year is my last kick at freedom for awhile it seems, an expensive kick at that...I am off to East Africa, working and bumming around. After spending weeks, getting prescriptions and ridiculous travel medicine advice from every would-be arm chair traveller, I have been stricken with the common flu... one week before my trip, so ...

... leaving Calgary at the crack of dawn on Wednesday and flying into Toronto where I'll be meeting up with Tammy, a friend from Toronto who has decided to join me for the first couple of weeks in Peru. The flight from Toronto to Peru is a good 8 hours which will give us plenty of time to talk about a Plan of Action for Peru but, as per usual, I'm just going where the wind takes me. I fly from Buenos Aires to Toronto on May 6th so I have a couple of weeks in ...

... met a complete change in season. the snow started to fall 30 minutes in and looked beautiful on the trees and landscape. we left toronto when the trees were turning but travelling further west they had already fallen, shame but will enjoy some amazing sights no doubt. the youth hostel in edmonton was great and would go back if there was anything else other than the 'worlds largest mall' at the hostel as you can see ...

... came up. Then the idea expanded to cycling the Camino de Santiago in Spain...The Road to Santiago, as is described (walking not cycling) in The Pilgrimage by Paulo Coehlo. Having read The Alchemist and being inspired by Paulo Coehlo's life story, I felt that doing this pilgrimage route might be something to do. Father and son cycling in Spain might have been a good idea for a book. Nick was all for the idea until a few weeks later when he found out that ...

... was US dollars - Canadian stores do not give cash back to US ATM's. Just to be kind to us, as most people have been in Canada, he took our US cash. And the food - 5 star!!!! The guy even allowed us to keep our truck parked at his store to ride our bikes downtown. Another interesting thing about the restaurant was that he had Al Jazeera on the TV. I watched a little of this news and it seemed OK - now this was the English version which I have heard is toned down ...

... I also had to write stuff the way I did because we live in a world where people want to be entertained. I stopped reading "Origin of Species, by Charles Darwin" because it was like reading a dictionary. A dictionary has a lot of interesting words in it. But I would never read it from start to finish. I've started re-reading my whole blog. Maybe there's something I forgot that I wrote that will tie all this together. Or not! Only time will tell. Think It! Feel It! Live It!

... had been checking the weather during the day, especially with the snow report and where Halifax was 23 deg. Toronto was 13 and Calgary was -1. Was this going to be another pay-back day? We arrived in Calgary, having crossed 2 time zones and it had now warmed up to 3 deg. There was no problem landing, as any early snow had cleared but I overheard one of the ground crew talking about the 'red alert this morning'. Do you remember ...

... head to the local campground - lose the hitchhiker (never again Martin!) - and set up camp for the night. (MR: nice young bloke, regailed us with interesting stories. But yeah - dodgy) After a long days drive we venture off to the hot springs which was pretty sweet - if you like taking a bath with a few dozen others! It was actually quite a funny experience - Marty decided on the way to buy a straw cowboy hat and so one of the fellow hot springers thought Marty was a ...