Canada Will Rock You

Last report from Canada. Calgary says it will rock you, whatever that means. If somebody rocked me I might call the police.

Now back to STL pix. There are rumors of nearly-naked people appearing on South Grand Boulevard tonight. Your intrepid reporter will cover the story. 

I Wanna Rock And Roll All Night

Another act from the evening show in Calgary, a Kiss tribute band, as they are called these days. I never rock and rolled all night even when I was young enough to try. And party every day? That's why I go to work, isn't it?

Tomorrow will have the last shots from Alberta, although I could go on for days more. Strange things are afoot in The Lou Saturday night.                     

Piano Wire

One of the features at the Stampede's evening show was an Elton John-type act with a difference. The piano and performer hung by wires from heavy cables, suspended between the stage and the top of the grandstand. It was, I'd guess, 10 or 15 m off the ground. The performer must have had deep trust in the engineers.

I think he was playing Bennie And The Jets, but I confess that at times I was paying more attention to the images than the performance.                         

TransAlta Show

After the chuckwagon races, a great day at the Calgary Stampede ends with the TransAlta Grandstand Show. Carolyn and I have never witnessed anything like it. The 90 minute extravaganza far surpasses anything we've seen in Las Vegas.

A large, complex stage on wheels is towed into the rodeo area. Then there is one brilliant act after another, accompanied by blazing lights, lasers and explosions of fire. This pair of acrobats was jaw dropping. I must be candid with my readers, though, and confess that my abdominal muscles don't look anything like this.

I'll do some posts on individual acts, but there are local events in the wings.                             

Chuckwagon Races

 

Back to Calgary. One of the popular rodeo-ish events is the chuckwagon races. These were vehicles used to prepare food for cowboys on long cattle drives. Today's versions closely resemble the old ones, down to the special oven they carry in the back. They come in from the right, do this complicated figure 8 pattern around barrels, then swoop back out where they came from and do a full lap around the track. The get penalties of so many seconds for not doing something exactly right. I never really got it, although they probably wouldn't understand the subtleties of skateboarding on moving NY subway cars like I did in my teens. Pick your own excitement.                            

Portraits Of Native Canadians 2

More of the same series. I don't know which one is my favorite. These people are beautiful and proud of their heritage.

There are still more in the Flickr set from the trip. I could post yet another day of this but maybe it's time to move on.                    

Rodeo

You might want to click this for background music while you read this post.

One of the not-to-be-missed events at the Calgary Stampede is the afternoon rodeo. First time for me. I'm not well acquainted with horses in general. The last time I sat astride one was when I was 5 and my mother had my picture taken on a pony. I've ridden a camel more recently. Anyway, it was a terrific show, even if I had no appreciation for the finer points.

There are lots more rodeo pictures on my hard drive. (There are a lot more pictures of everything.) We're in Banff now,in the spectacular Canadian Rockies. Supposed to be rainy today but it might make for some moody, atmospheric shots.                           

It's Yahoo!, Not Yee Haw!

Greetings from Calgary, Alberta, where it's still Friday. Our first few days here at the Calgary Stampede have been fascinating and exhausting. I hit a personal best or worst on Thursday, taking 2,123 photos, although many were repeated shots of the same subject, trying to get exposure and composition just right.

There were so many exciting things to see that I can only touch the surface in this post. That's me and Mrs. C in the top pic, doing the hi, kids, pose. Below, several shots from the ceremonies of the Canadian indigenous peoples. Farther down, two young women promoting a local radio station snack on the famous Canadian delicacy, chocolate covered bacon on a stick.

By the way, at least half of the people around here are wearing cowboy hats. It's no more unusual than baseball fans wearing a Cardinals hat at Busch Stadium. And we were instructed that the proper etiquette is to cheer someone on by shouting yahoo! The expression yee haw is for those, um, Texans.

So much more to come.