Calgary - home to the Calgary Stampede dubbed the greatest outdoor show on earth!
This is the reason we came to Calgary and let me me say it lived up to all its expectations.
We stayed at the Best Western airport hotel which was 10 minutes from the stampede.
After a big breakfast it was time to put our Cowboy hats on and get the shuttle bus to the grounds at 11:30am. It was bright sunshine.

I wasn't sure what to expect as I had never been to a rodeo before and the only outdoor festival I had ever been to was park life in Manchester! This was crazy big with every kind of weird food truck you could imagine. Here's a few I'm going to list: meatball sub on a stick, Mac n cheese stuffed burgers, cornflake chicken on a stick, deep fried coffee, Oreo churros. Pretty crazy stuff going on there! Me and kirsty opted for a pretzel and a brisket bbq sandwich throughout the day That's just the food....

As for all the other sections of the park there was: a market place, theatre, grandstand, live music tent, adventure park, kids fun fair, Indian village, barn, outdoor acrobatic shows, ramp up adrenaline shows, doggy shows, bars and bull simulators and a ton of cowboy shops!

We had booked to see the 1:15 rodeo which was 2.5hrs long. It kicked off with a little show from some dancers and people from the Indian village then a girl sung the national anthem and all the horses and riders were introduced. Because we were there on the last day we saw the finals of the 6 major rodeo events - 1. Saddle bronc (with a saddle on a horse trying to buck you off) 2. Bareback (the same but with no saddle) 3. Bull riding (who can stay on the longest) 4. Tie down roping (the cowboy is on a horse and has to catch a cow and tie it down to the ground the fastest) 5. Steer wrestling (the Cowboys chase a cow and jump off their horses and steer it to the ground, fastest time wins) 6. Ladies barrel racing (they race the horses around 3 barrels one by one to see who gets the fastest time)
The winner of this event was a 64 year old woman, she was ace.
So we found the rodeo really good for our first time and you soon get into the groove of things when the crowd gets going. It's a shame it started torrential down pouring in the the last 30mins and everyone had to go inside and watch it but nothing was ruined.

Afterwards we had some food out in the rain and then headed to the Nashville North live music tent. Mainly because it was undercover and we thought it was time to party!! They played loads of country music which I loved and we did lots of two step and jive dancing. We literally spent the rest of the night in here because it was so good and we met lots lots people. 12 hours and 9 beers later we got back to the hotel at half past midnight. Great day, amazing night :)

Thanks you Calgary xx