The Woodsies Bear All In Canada
Well we're back from what can only be explained as a truly wonderful experience. Bert and Nicki and the kids made the four of us feel really welcome, and yes it's a bit clichéd but we really didn't want to come home! We loved ever minute of our time with them and they let their home be ours as well THANK YOU so much.
Right that's the soppy bit out of the way, now what did the Woods family think of the Canadians and their country? Well there is really only one word to describe the area we stayed around and that's .. cowboys! The place is full of them. On the first weekend we were there the Thompson's thought it would a good laugh to go to "The Little Britches Rodeo" (drop the 'r' and you could be in trouble!!!) Seemed like a good idea to us ... right up to the point when it started that is! Imagine the scene ... there is tension in the air as the (now get this everyone) kids get ready for their big ride, the crowd is ready, the clowns are ready ... the gate opens, out charges the bull with kid holding on for dear life, the kid falls off, the bull stamps on kid, kid placed onto back-board, neck brace put onto kid, kid put into ambulance and off to hospital ... now repeat that for the second kid and you'll understand why Karen and I had our mouths open with astonishment!!! They start their kids doing this from 3!!! Cowboys eh? Mad as hatters. Thankfully the rest of the kids only got bruises and maybe a broken arm or such. That was on the Sunday, but on the Saturday, High River (the town the Thompson's live in) had their annual parade. Full of cowboys and farm vehicles (we think that was the first inkling we had of the locals!) but that was a really good parade and seemed to go on for ages.
What else did we all do? Well we went to Heritage park in Calgary which is a park which has loads of really old buildings in and they have preserved these for future generations. It was a real good day out especially the fantastic buildings. I did find it amusing however that the workers were so proud that some of the buildings were "over one hundred years old", they should come to the uk ... the poor old dear in the "1912 post office" nearly died when I told her that our relatively new house (1902) was older than most of the buildings in the park!!! Still the park was fantastic though, and well worth going to.
MARV'S what can I say about this character apart from he's a gem! He owns a 50's Soda Bar in Black Diamond AB, and even though we were the only four in the place he got his guitar and started singing rock and roll to us, with the 50's setting drinking ice-cream sodas it was magical. Have a look at his shops website for a taste of what he's like. http://www.marvsclassics.ca/
For us though, there was really only one truly highlight during our time there (sorry Bert it's not Rogers Roadhouse Bar) and that was the three days we spent in the Rockies. We were warned by Nicki that if we saw "a" bear we were not allowed back to theirs, so we played it safe and saw 7!!! The first was a magnificent Grizzly digging for roots by the roadside. The other six were Black Bears, all were beautiful creatures. We really gloated to Nicki about them as in 18months she has yet to see one and we saw 7 in our first three days in the Rockies! 
The only thing that out did seeing the bears was (for me anyway) the mountains! They are majestic. The Canadians are justifiably right to be proud of them. Highway 93 through the Rockies from Banff to Jasper is without doubt the most stunning road we have ever travelled on. The wildlife along the road is amazing from bears, elks, goats, deer to buzzards and eagles soaring above. All in the shadow of some of the most amazing scenery to see.
We took the kids onto the Athebasca Glacier which is only 1200ft thick, and wow that was fantastic! Although we think it was helped by the fact there was only about 30 of us there (unlike the middle of the summer when they have hundreds on it!) The water that flowed of it was crystal clear and tasted really, really ice cold! A stunning experience for us and the boys. Talking of the boys, Karen and I thought they might like white-water rafting so we booked the four of us to go ... NOT the quiet stroll down the river we had seen the previous night from our log cabin with one guy with oars standing in the middle of the raft, and the oldies all sitting around the side in red ponchos "oohing" and "ahhing". Nope we had booked "the other" company. Proper white-water rafting!!! Wetsuits, oars and raft - then off you go!!! Have a look at the photos to see what I mean. Gary and Nathan even jumped into the ice cold melt water to swim bloody freezing!!! Well the Rockies were stunning and we could ramble on about them for ages but there is other stuff to talk about. Do you think we liked the Rockies??? 
If you ever go past a place called VULCAN in AB Canada stop there!!! It has the 'worst' museum we have ever been in, but by virtue it makes it the best. Its all based around STARTREK and has loads of tat about StarTrek (I suppose it would help if you were a trekkie), and the most enthusiastic museum curator you could possibly meet! Boy was she enthusiastic!!! She "loved" Vulcan and to her it was the centre of the universe!!! The museum also had the tackiest StarTrek video game I have ever played, Karen and I had tears in our eyes from playing it! Even out side you couldn't escape it, as you arrived in Vulcan there was a "Welcome to Vulcan - Live Long and Prosper" sign by the roadside which had the characters painted on it - but get this, you had a little flap so you could put your face in it and be one of the crew. IT'S A ROAD SIGN FOR GOODNESS SAKE!!! Talk about milking your town name, it had StarTrek named shops, murals on sides of buildings of crew members and yes it also had a model of the USS Enterprise on a plinth as you drove into the "town". Brilliant laugh though even if a bit tacky (we missed the yearly "Spock Days" though phew!). The website shows the inside of the "Museum" http://www.town.vulcan.ab.ca/index.php
We could go on for ages about the places we went to like "Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump" which is named after a Blackfoot brave who thought he had the best place to watch all these buffalo being stampeded off the cliff face ... no prizes for guessing where he stood to watch! Still it is a superb place which does have history attached to it (in use from about 6000bc to about 150years ago) and was used to kill buffalo for food and hides etc. by the first nations peoples.
Holiday pics can be viewed here:
http://www.photobox.co.uk/slideshow?album_id=53054592
We had many, many great days doing things like the Calgary Zoo, Sheep River Falls, Waterton Lakes and Park the day at Calaway Park, the totally amazing Dinosaur Museum at Drumheller's in the Canadian Badlands (real cowboy and Indian country) etc. but I guess you'll get fed with me rambling more and more, so all I am going to say on behalf of myself Gary, Karen, Nathan and Elliot - oh yes and Barnaby the Bear, is once again Bert and Nicki and family thank you for giving us the chance to experience a wonderful part of the world with wonderful people, and once again thank you for making our time there so enjoyable and welcoming with you.xxx
