“The Greatest Outdoor Show on Earth”

Known as the Calgary Stampede is simply an excuse for cowboys to have a great party! Nine days in July, it culminates in $1.8 million prize money being given away for the best cowboys in various disciplines. Of course it is also a great opportunity for the people of Alberta and Calgary in particular to show off their own brand of ‘something special.’ We are now recovering from our week of non stop partying and look back at our time filled with lots of Yahoo’s, Yeeha’s, dancing, laughing and meeting some wonderful new friends. Here are our thoughts:

Rodeo We planned early, booking our tickets quite a few months ago to ensure we saw the best of the best on the final day (Sunday) of the Stampede Rodeo. Lasting four hours and having six events in total, including bull riding, bareback horseriding, bucking broncos, steer wrestling, lassoing and cowgirl barrel racing. We still can’t explain the rules, but it sure looks like cowboys are crazy fools!!

Chuckwagon Racing Four wagons and outriders racing around the circuit. Our seats gave us some prime viewing of the whole track. Again we are sketchy on the rules but the sight of these four thoroughbred horses pulling each wagon is pretty impressive. Again, we booked our tickets early to get seats for the Saturday show. What a final weekend that was!

Grandstand Show Following the Chickwagon Races on Saturday night, the Grandstand Show was a true spectacular. There was everything from “Young Canadians” to a Cirque du Soleil troop, as well as motorcycles doing backflips over a 30 foot jump, not to mention the fireworks. Superb!

Indian Village We met up with Laura on her home turf and spent the day together in stampede park. We all saw the Indian Village complete with tepees and dancing. It was great to catch up and felt like no time since we had been together in Argentina, we plan to test Laura’s home cooking this week!

Nashville North aka the Beer tent!! Nashville North is a stampede institution where live bands play country tunes. It has a great party atmosphere and we met up with Kelly & Jodie as well as making some new friends there.

The Ranchman a famous hangout and place to meet cowboys! Now I’m talking about the real ones, not these wannabees you can see all over the stampede grounds! Shandy told me the sure fire way to spot a real cowboy was to look at their boots - they should be very dirty, they would have a very expensive cowboy hat, checked shirt, big farmer hands & a buckle! Well, armed with this information I did indeed get to meet my very own real cowboy! He even taught me how to two step, that’s a country dance to all of us who think Dolly Parton is the only country singer in the world! I still prefer the cowboy I have though! :-)

Super dogs It’s all in the title! Everything from high jumps to racing around a track. Mike and I lost our voices from screaming so much…..seriously! However, nothing Nashville North and a few beers didn’t sort out!

Best dinner in Calgary was with David & Colleen who had us to stay on Monday night. They had invited us to come after the stampede so as we could relax after all the partying, in reality the party continued with them! The first bottle of wine was opened at 5pm and we merrily caught up on all our news since we had last seen them in Fermanagh last year. They have a beautiful home and wonderful family, we had a great night. Thank you so much. X


The Calgary Stampede was one of the events that we decided to include before we left home all those months ago. Being in Calgary for the stampede meant we got to experience the best cowboy party on earth and although we come away with slightly more clogged arteries from all the hotdogs and weaker livers from all the beer, I can safely say we both give it a

BIG Yeeha!

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