Day 7 (Aug 5) - How the west was once

Heritage Park, Calgary AB

We had a somewhat lazy morning and got to Heritage Park about 11 am. Our first stop once we got into the main part of the park was the Steam train that loops around the whole park. This gave us a chance to see where things were and got the train ride out of the way. 

waiting for the train 

Great looking train

From there we walked into town. The “Historical Village” is representative of the late 1800s – early 1900s or the early days of railroad. Streets are dirt with wooden sidewalks. Horses pull wagons up and down the streets and a few cars appear now and then. The shops are open with things from that era. We also found a early synagogue, a theater, bakery, blacksmith, soda fountain, railroad car shop and roundhouse, farm, machine shop, firehouse.....and more :) 

Heading into town

snow plow in the roundhouse

another engine

We wandered all around, but I think the high point for the kids was the classic amusement park area. With refurbished or replicas of rides. Our little lady rode the carousel 3 times with me or daddy and 4 more times on her own. Our boy really enjoyed the full size ferris wheel.

on the carousel 

 rocker style carousel 

on the big Ferris wheel with Daddy

being brave with  a new friend on the little Ferris wheel

We spent all day at the park, heading out a little bit before closing. We found “Gasoline Alley museum” on our way out. Wandering though the two floors of automobile history was pretty cool. The kids got a kick out of it as well, even through they were both too tall to play or drive through the trike track. I have to admit they have a huge collection of antique cars and they were all really nicely restored, I could have spent more time here, but we were ready to head back to our hotel and figure out dinner.

With a vote of 3 to 1 we headed back out to Spiros Pizza and Greek specialties. To be honest I was the hold out :) For some reason I was/am feeling a bit off this evening. I think its just 7 days of fun combined with different sleeping situations and lots of different food.....whine whine whine, I know ;)
I was voting for room service, so I could be super lazy, but Spiros was a pleasant surprise.

Well that we got a table was lucky. The parking lot was moderately full, but every empty table in the place had a reserved sign on it. She moved a sign and sat us anyway.... from then on the place just filled up. By the time we finished up and paid, it was hard to even find the door – so many people. Now the weather had something to do with this I think. About halfway through dinner the sky opened up – it was a serious downpour. We made a run for it to the car, and the hail had just started.

wet

its hard to see, but the sidewalk is a couple of inches below the water

hail to... also hard to see in the pictures.

So earlier in the day we were re-applying sunscreen and on the way home from dinner the streets had so much water some of the sidewalks were under water. Crazy! So we floated home ;) to the hotel and hit the pool.