Today we are headed to our last destination for this trip, Calgary, Alberta, but we will do a bit of sightseeing along the way. It was a leisurely start of the day as we were not scheduled to be picked up until 11AM so we had a chance to have a nice breakfast at the hotel prior to leaving.

Our major stop for the day turned out to be right around the corner at the Banff Gondola, a meer 5 minute bus ride, further up Sulphur Mountain. We had pre-arranged reservations for the gondola scheduled to leave at 11:30. That is one of the nice things about tours; they make these reservations ahead of time so you do not have to wait in line. I was surprised at how busy the attraction was this early in the season. Again I would hate to be here during peak season. Note to fellow travelers: Avoid the peak season when traveling unless you like crowds! After our experience with previous gondolas I was surprised to see that that this one used 4 passenger cars rather than the mega-sized ones that carry 25-50 passengers. Even though the boarding line seemed large it went quickly. I learned that there were 40 of the cars on the total line and they are in constant motion. Soon we were on the upper slopes of Sulphur Mountain looking out over the Bow Valley, Banff far below and the surrounding mountains. It is a spectacular view! There was another opportunity for an extended walk to a former fire watch tower but it involved traversing 300 steps (probably in each direction from the looks of the trail) and being sound, rational 82 year olds, we decided to pass up the opportunity and simply enjoy the views from the terminal area during our 1 hour of free time.

Returning to our bus we were driven to two of the sights we had already seen yesterday (Bow Falls and Surprise Lookout) before we were dropped off in the downtown area for a late lunch on our own before heading to Calgary which was about a 1.5 hour ride.

The scenery dramatically changed as we left Banff and we quickly left the mountains and entered fairly flat landscape dotted with grasslands and grazing cattle. This is now cow country! By 5 PM we were pulling up to our hotel (Fairmont Pallister) in downtown Calgary.

Calgary is bigger and more modern that I thought.  It is the biggest city in Alberta with a population of 1.3 million people and has become the oil capital of Canada. It is probably more famous, however, for the world famous “Calgary Stampede”, their famous rodeo held every July. As a result Calgary is often referred to as “Cowtown”.

A couple of of “I did not know that” facts: Calgary was the site of the 1988 Winter Olympics  This is where the Jamaican bobsled team made its debut. Also, Calgary has the Calgary Tower, built in 1968 and stands 626 feet high (our Space Needle is only 605 ft). The amazing statistic the bus driver told us was that the concrete tower was poured continuously 24 hours a day over a period of 24 consecutive days-pretty impressive!

Since this cow country I decided we needed to end our trip by visiting one of their local steakhouses for our final dinner.

Our anniversary reunion trip is at and end. Tomorrow we fly home.