During last year in the month of May, I decided to take my Mom on a spontaneous trip to Calgary. I did touch on this trip a little during PW #2, but this PW will go into more detail. But all circumstantial, I’m still going to talk about this with more detail, so on with the story! It was surprisingly the first time that I had been on a trip with only my mom, because almost all of the trips that I go on involve my family, because my siblings don’t like being left out, which I totally understand, and it’s just a challenge of having a five person family. For quite a while, I was on about going to Calgary, because the prairies appeal to me quite a bit (said no one ever, but I’m going to say it). Along with this, a portion of my mom’s side resides in Calgary, so I wanted to pay them a visit. After a quick ‘consultation’ with my siblings, both of them didn’t want to come, so I ended up booking some very cheap tickets with WestJet a couple months prior.
Because I’m obsessed with aviation, this was obviously such a feat to be taking a one-hour flight, which was a quick hop over the Strait of Georgia and the Rocky Mountains. May 26, 2023, finally came around, the date that we were supposed to fly out. Props to my mom who made no complaints about our departure time. This departure time was the first scheduled flight out of the airport (YYJ), leaving at 5:50am. This meant we had to get to the airport 90 minutes at 4:20am, which meant leaving the house at 3:20am. We arrived to check-in and clear TSA, in which we were informed that the flight was slightly delayed until 6:00am. Onboard a slightly older 737-800 for this short-ish 800km hop to Calgary (YYC), there was the standard inflight service, with the pretzels that taste excellent. We reached our cruise altitude of 37,000ft, which we only maintained for about a half an hour, before starting our initial descent over the west side of the Rockies. We started our approach onto runway 35L, which is one of my favorites as the approach is set over the skyline, with some great scenery. Unfortunately, I was on the right side, in 12F, so I didn’t get to see the skyline on approach. We arrived in Calgary at 8:17am, MDT (yes, I did record the time we arrived).
We exited into Concourse A, where we found our way to the arrivals. Me and my mom made our way to the street where we found our aunt waiting for us with her vehicle. We got in and hung a left onto Airport Tr. Another remark is that the drivers are really aggressive, and they will honk at any minor inconvenience, which to their credit, they do get where they need to go, but it’s still interesting. After the lef, we headed onto the QE2, otherwise known as Deerfoot Tr. We had a quick 15 minute drive to OEB Breakfast near the city centre, where we had some breakfast links, bacon, and some lukewarm eggs. The breakfast was okay, but nothing remarkable. We carried onto the Calgary Zoo, which had lots of cool exhibitions. I had some fries there, heavy on the average, they were nothing special. Me and my mom got onto the Blue Line towards downtown, which was a very quick 5 minute ride onto 7 St SW, where the trains run along the street like streetcars. It kind of reminded me of San Francisco in a way, but without the streets on big inclines.
Carrying onto the Calgary Tower, I went up a 45 story elevator until we reached the tip, which had great views of the city. I bought some ridiculously priced maple toffee ($15!), and hopped onto the Red Line with my mom to take another quick train ride to Kensington, a smaller market area where my aunt was located. She lives in a rather small apartment, but I found a place. She brought out some pizza she ordered from downtown, and we caught up with her. We must’ve talked for almost 2 hours before my aunt had the idea to go and visit one of our relatives, who lived over in the west side of Calgary near the city limits. We headed in and had another long conversation, because we hadn’t seen him in a few years, since this was the first time I had been to Calgary. After we talked to him, we made our way a few streets over to visit one of my Grandpa’s close friends, who I hadn’t seen since I was only a year old. The thing was that my aunt didn’t tell him that me and my Mom were there.
Our car arrived at his rather sizable condo, where we went in and gave his door a knock. He first saw my aunt, who he was expecting, and then me and my mom, who he definitely wasn’t expecting. Long story short, he was so excited to see us for the first time in 13 years. It was really wholesome, and it is a memory that has stuck with me for a long time. We must have talked for almost 3 hours. Afterwards, everyone said their farewell’s, and we drove back to my aunt’s apartment. On the second day, I woke up to my aunt bringing out a box of pastries from her favourite bakery in the city, a great way to start the day. I had ambitions to go to one of the larger malls in the south side of Calgary, as well as spending time with my cousins that live near Okotoks. CF Chinook Center. We got back into the car and headed through downtown and onto Macleod Tr, where there was piles of traffic. We arrived at the mall, did some clothes shopping, and went to this fancy bakery store, which had very high price points. Unsurprisingly, we left that store with only a tin of shortbread and chocolate almonds, which still came to a total of $90. Believe me, it wasn’t my idea to get $60 lemon shortbread, but I still got a good laugh out of it.
We carried on to Okotoks, on Highway 2X, with a stop to pick up one of my older cousins from a sleepover. After the short detour, we yet again got back onto the highway, and continued, before exiting onto the 552 eastbound. We pulled up to my cousins house, which is in the middle of nowhere, and it essentially has prairie on all four sides of the house. On a clear day you can see all the way to the Rockies from the house. I went into the house with my cousin we picked up, and it was announced that we would be having pineapple pulled pork for dinner, which to say the least, it was really good. Afterwards, I went out into my cousins spacious yard to go on their trampoline which overlooked the rolling hills. They have two dogs which are both energetic, it can be chaotic at times, but a good chaotic, if that makes sense. We did our classic trampoline games while the dogs freaked out below and ran around the trampoline, and it was pretty entertaining. In the prairies, the sunsets are majestic. On a clear day, it has some of the best sunsets I’ve ever seen. Luckily, it was a perfectly clear night, which unsurprisingly, because Calgary is the sunniest city in Canada. On average, they receive an impressive 335 days of sunshine a year, compared to the 260 days a year Victoria gets.
My cousins and me filed back into the house and into their basement, which was nicely furnished and cozy. I made some popcorn with their popcorn machine, and we sat on their large couch and watched Percy Jackson. However, I was getting tired, and I only made it about 30 minutes into the movie before I passed out onto the couch, which has to be the most comfortable couch I’ve ever slept on. I was awoken to the sun in my eyes through the basement window, and I trailed upstairs to be met with Costco cinnamon buns, which were delicious. After my cinnamon bun, my cousin brought me back downstairs and we played some Star Wars on his Xbox, until about 11am. The ambition for the day was to make a trip to Sheep River, a provincial park 40km west of the house. I did touch on this a bit in PW #2, but I’ll go into more detail here. We piled into their Pathfinder and got on the road, first towards the Saskatoon Farm, where we had a nice breakfast overlooking the river. Afterwards, we headed to Okotoks, where we filled up the car before doing the drive towards Sheep River. Proceeding on Highway 7, we drove through Turner Valley, and Black Diamond, where the prairies turned to mountains. We reached Bighorn Lookout, where we got out of the car, took a short walk, and arrived on this large mountainous lookout, with spectacular views. After taking in all the scenery, and many pictures from my mom, we loaded the car back up, and headed eastbound, back to Black Diamond. We stopped at this diner on the main strip called Marv’s, which was a retro 80s style diner, again briefly mentioned in PW #2. I had an ice cream, as well as an Oreo flavoured cow-tale. I don’t know how to describe what a cowtail looked like, it was sort of an Oreo flavoured fondant with the cream in the middle.
We headed back to the house, and once we arrived both me and my cousin beelined downstairs to play some more Star Wars, before my aunt came to pick us up to bring us back to the city, as it was a Sunday and my cousins had school the next day. We got onto the QE2, and headed northbound to the Four Points hotel near Calgary Airport. My aunt graciously offered to take me and my mom for dinner at Joey’s, a burger joint off of Barlow Tr. We took a short 5 minute drive back to the hotel, and chilled out for a few hours, before briefly going out in 50 km/h winds to get Tim Hortons in the same plaza, where they were out of literally everything. They had only had one type of muffin, and zero chocolate chip muffins. Quite saddening indeed. We went back to the hotel and I fell asleep around 11pm again. A new day arose, and I was up at 6am, even though the flight didn’t leave until 11:30am. There was a free airport shuttle that came around every hour from the hotel, so we booked an 8am shuttle at the front desk. The guy pulled up, right on time at 8am, in his wonderful Four Points branded Dodge minivan (this is sarcasm, but it was still entertaining).
We made one stop at a sister hotel, and we continued along Barlow Tr towards the airport. My mom met a nice fellow in the shuttle, who was friendly and off to Salt Lake City for a business trip. We finally arrived at the airport after 15 minutes at the domestic terminal. Exiting this mom car and going into the airport, we printed our boarding passes at the self-serve kiosk. I guided my mom to TSA checkpoint C, where our flight was departing from. The line was massive. It was almost 90 minutes that we waited, but on the plus side we met a nice grandmother from Sudbury, ON. She was with her granddaughter in Calgary simply for fun, and to explore the city. After the tedious TSA line, we made our way to concourse C, while we waited for yet another 737-800 to arrive for our outbound flight. About 45 minutes later our inbound plane arrived and we boarded shortly after. Pushback was right on time, where our flight attendants introduced themselves with elevator music, I don’t know why, but it added a nice touch to the short journey. We took off on runway 17R, where I got a perfect view of the skyline, everything I was dreaming of and more. We hung a right before climbing to our cruise altitude of 35,000ft over the east side of the Rockies, with more in-flight service. This time, I went with the Celebration Cookie, which was fantastic. Just like the flight into Calgary, we were only at cruise for about a half an hour, before starting our initial descent over Vancouver on the RNAV 09 Y approach plate, near Mt. Tuam on Salt Spring Island. We were soon on final, and we landed at 12:03pm, PDT. As we taxied to the gate, I nerded out on being impressed about the short landing roll. I also saved the flight path for future reference. I was home on a Monday, so I got to skip the remainder of the school day. We were home on May 29, after the magnificent and eventful trip. Kudos to anyone who reads this whole story, because it’s super lengthy.