Calgary by rail...

Calgary…Wild Rose Country - and it is true, the roadsides are covered with small bushes w delicate pink flowers that on closer inspection have thorns. Without the flowers they appear to be weeds…

We drove 20 miles to the "end of the line" - (about 10 miles from downtown Calgary) so as to experience their rail system. The parking, plentiful at 7am (not unlike the Sunset Transit garage) was packed on both sides of the tracks so we parked in a mall lot about a 9 min walk away. (This is an important side-note.) Once you get to the "transit plaza" (which looks like Beaverton Transit Ctr) you discover that, if you are not a local, there is NO manner in which to purchase a ticket unless you have exact Canadian coins - you are in for a 9 min walk back to the nearest fast food place - to buy that bottled water in order to get change for the ticket machines. You can not use a debit/credit card or bills. Coins are the only method to purchase your $2.75 one-way ticket. The irritating piece is that you have no way of knowing this until you have parked your car….regardless of where, if you don't have "toonies" ($2/C or a "loonie" - $1/C, or smaller you have to trot over to that fast food place. The good news is that it's $2.75 no matter where you travel.

 

Once the train arrived we were set. The Calgary Transit cars are the same size as MAX, however unlike Portland - they have 4 cars per train - their city blocks are longer to accommodate. MAX has it all over the CRT….MAX actually provides an in-car service routes AND signage on the side of the car indicating which train one is actually stepping into before one discovers that one is headed EAST rather than South and have to abort at the next station. Those darn tourists!

We had a good time wandering around downtown Calgary….discovering the obsessive love affair with all things Stampede. Most of the pubs and restaurants that front the streets all have wooden corrals built around their entrance and street facing windows….creating small patios of outside dining areas. About 90% of the windows have some Western-themed cartoon or language painted on them…quite the sight.

The walking tour provide us with lots of opportunities to see some really great art pieces right in downtown.

 

Buffalo Trails

 

Metal Horses in Courthouse Park Plaza




Horse of Metal Junk





Family of Man