Today is the start of the annual Calgary Stampede. We happened to fly in to Calgary last night (returning from Boston), as throngs of temporary Stampeders arrived to partake in the western-themed extravaganza. As a matter of fact, three large planes arrived at the exact same time, sharing one luggage carousel. Even the priest in line ahead of me had a surprisingly short fuse, being jostled about as he was by eager passengers, hoping to reunite with their luggage. I can't be entirely positive that he flipped one lady the bird, but he sure wasn't offering a traditional sort of blessing...

What a frigging madhouse!! Unlikely cowboys and cowgirls everywhere, with friends or family hollerin "Yee-Haa!!" whenever they spotted a familiar cowpoke. Did they really do that sort of thing in the Old West???

To be honest, my wife and I bought a couple of wicker-ish (straw??) cowboy hats last week, before we left for Boston, hoping to blend in (for Calgary, silly...not Boston. We bought lobster bibs for that...).

We also listened to hours of country music, trying to get hip with the jive. We needed some boot-scoot in our boogie; some honky-tonk in our badonkadonks. For older cowboy readers, we needed some Happy in our Trails...

Shortly, the big kickoff parade heads through downtown Calgary. On a slightly unrelated note, how about that Rock Star: Supernova?? We missed the first twenty minutes of the debut episode, but hard to say yet if this round will draw an audience, for a theoretical "supergroup".

After the parade, I have no idea what goes on, but maybe we can catch some small part of it, being here as we are...

Chow for now!!