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PostPosted: Wed Dec 05, 2018 11:20 am 
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King of Men
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So The Tea Party is on tour through Canada March through May.

I am going to see them.....so I suppose its just picking a spot.

https://teaparty.com/

They are hitting a few towns in the Us that are Canadian already (Buffalo, Seattle and the obligatory San Fran/LA scene). I saw them in LA last year so not really into that.

Not really into Edmonton, Calgary, Montreal (oh how I love you) or Ontario in general. But I am interested in Winnipeg, Regina, Kamloops, Kelowna, Victoria and Saskatoon. Halifax would be pretty badass too.

Any recommendations from the Canadians on which to visit?

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PostPosted: Wed Dec 05, 2018 11:32 am 
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St-Eustache, Quebec! Rocking the sticks!

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PostPosted: Wed Dec 05, 2018 12:47 pm 
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You driving or flying?

Avoid Regina, its the butthole of Canada. Saskatoon though is quite nice. Halifax is the friendliest of all Canadian cities after St. John's but a mammoth drive for you. If you're driving I'd suggest Kelowna, very pretty town and it would give you a chance to drive through the Kootenay's. From the little I know of you I think you would love this area of Canada. So much you might even consider it for your retirement homestead.

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PostPosted: Wed Dec 05, 2018 2:08 pm 
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Thank you! Halifax would be nice I have a buddy who lives up in Maine so we would fly in there. Still might look at Bangor as I have very distant ancestry on the french side in Bingham ME and I would like to track them.

Depending on the cost we would probably fly into BC/Sask/Manitoba. The old girl does have a nice touring vehicle but 22 hours to Kelowna is a little out of my patience range. Looks like Kelowna is about 860 driving miles from PR where I could take the ferry to Sitka. Not exactly close but it is doable. Flights to Kelowna are suprisingly cheap from Denver ($250). Looks to be 4 hours from Vancouver.

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PostPosted: Wed Dec 05, 2018 4:49 pm 
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22 hours is a good day's driving for me when I was in my 20's. These days anything over 14 is too much. Did Seattle to Dallas once in 45 hours with a buddy spelling me off for about 5 hours a day.

Seriously the Kootenay's are the most beautiful place in North America and well worth slowing down and touring through. Although the trudge through western Colorado, Wyoming and southern Idaho would be a bit of bore.

Kelowna to Prince Rupert is probably a 14 or 15 hour drive. From Quesnel to Prince Rupert is pretty boring as well.

Vancouver is about 4.5 hours. If you do Kelowna I'd recommend you take a half day and rent bikes and tour Myra Canyon. When it was built it was considered to be the 2nd most difficult piece of railway engineering in the world. Something like 18 trestle bridges, two tunnels in about 12 kms. And the scenery is great.

https://www.myratrestles.com/

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PostPosted: Thu Dec 06, 2018 9:59 am 
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Well I started telling old girl about it and she says....I already bought the show tickets in Calgary for Christmas....oops.....West jet started going there so hopefully the tickets are cheap. So Calgary it is on Friday May 3rd. Have to reach the 2nd round to see the Flames though.

When I was younger I drove from Burlington VT to Prince Rupert BC....taking the tour across Canada was pretty neat got to see Drumheller, the Columbia Ice Field and Banff so that was cool. I was young so I didn't particularly appreciate it as I should. I also drove from Burlington VT to Denver up through Canada and down through the 401. Those are trips I am NOT interested in any longer unless I have an RV. I top out at around 6 or 7 hours at this point. Probably the reason I don't drive up to Calgary.

I think we talked about train trips elsewhere as well. Have you folks done this?

Kelowna does look nice....I did some real estate scouting and its price comparative to Denver right now......no acreage I could find readily though. Definitely a place I'd like to visit and experience.

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PostPosted: Thu Dec 06, 2018 12:18 pm 
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Burlington to PR is a massive drive, I'd guess 5 days. Northern Ontario is pretty but it just goes on for what seems like forever. Good you got to see the Columbia icefields when you did, they're retreating as faster then my hairline did in my 30's.

Kelowna is really nice. Prices are cheaper an hour north in Vernon though. Kelowna, is hot in the summer and pretty mild winters. Great wine country, and good hiking and skiing close by, And dry and more hours of sunshine annually then anywhere else in North America (surprising, but long Canadian summer days in a near desert climate will do it.)

If you like hiking, mountain biking, skiing suggest you do a home, acerage price check for the following. Grad Forks, Slocan, Trail, Castelgar, and Creston. You'll find the prices much more to your liking than Kelowna. And if the wife still wants the city/airport connections Spokane is only a couple hours away.

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PostPosted: Tue Mar 19, 2019 11:05 am 
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Booked my flight to Calgary through WestJet....never flown on them before.

Staying at Hotel Le Germain.....hopefully the Flames are still in it! Haven't been to Calgary since I was 16 so this should be interesting.

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PostPosted: Tue Mar 19, 2019 12:54 pm 
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harmfuljays wrote:
Booked my flight to Calgary through WestJet....never flown on them before.

Staying at Hotel Le Germain.....hopefully the Flames are still in it! Haven't been to Calgary since I was 16 so this should be interesting.


Have flown Westjet a bunch of times to the Caribbean. They are great.

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PostPosted: Mon May 06, 2019 10:10 am 
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So I finally went to Calgary. The concert was at the grey eagle casino...the carpet smelled like a bums ass and the sound was pretty bad. At least they had banquets and a fine crowd enjoying them! The Proud Sons from Winnipeg opened up....and while I don't like country they had an energetic guitar player who was very entertaining. Tea Party themselves seems to be winding down and there was a definite drop off from the last concert in LA. We did not stay for the final set and that will probably be that for travelling to see the Tea Party.

Apparently...it still snows quite a bit in Calgary in May. On the only semi decent day we went up to Banff and Lake Louise. The rest of the time it snowed. The RCMP had a tourist trap setup for tickets in Lake Louise. I still have no idea what stop sign I supposedly didn't stop at. He even made me take a breathalyzer immediately! But it looks like they were doing that with lots of people as they had many cars pulled over at this spot. He kept telling me I was getting a good deal for $233! Thanks tool of the man Constable! I didn't let that dampen my Lake Louise experience though. Lake Louise is still pretty even on a semi cloudy day. Nevermind all the tourists out on the ice when it says DANGER THIN ICE!.
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I didn't get a chance to go up to Wetaskiwin because the weather was bad. My 2nd great grandfather is buried up there and had a land grant so I wanted to go see it. Probably gives me an excuse to go to Edmonton.

I was shocked at the amount of video surveillance....everywhere on the streets of Calgary there were cameras and signs telling you they had the right to film you.

Hotel Le Germain was way too posh and pretentious for me.......Valet only parking for $40 a day! What a deal! :roll: Not sure what the hype is on this hotel. Location was sub-par as was the services. The concierge was kind of a knob....I handed him my keys and my wife and I spoke with him directly....2 hours later and he is pulling a Rick James, trying to tell me that never happened and he never accepts keys....the folks at the front desk were very hard to understand. Supposedly one of the best hotels in Calgary.....the rooms were nice but I could have made do with much less and better/friendlier service.

I was the only one I ever saw wearing any Flames gear. In fact I saw more Bruins fans than Flames fans.....speaking of......a huge shout out to Hudson's Canada's pub in Downtown Calgary. Watched both Bruins games there....they turned the sound on and even turned on the goal lights when I asked what they were. When the manager fellow found out I was an out of town Flames fan he even gave me a 3X5 Flames flag. TVs with hockey on everywhere and in the booths (and the poutine was great too)! Great experience. Thanks Emily and Manager guy at Hudsons!

The city could use some better signage....this Way to the Saddledome or Stampede park would be really helpful. Fortunately, I was right next to the Calgary tower so getting home wasn't bad. No Lyft but plenty of Uber and that's a good thing because the roads downtown were confusing (for me, google maps and even the uber drivers) and led me down 7th street in my rental which was definitely a no no. Thankfully, I got off that street quickly as I'd already donated enough to Alberta through the RCMP.

Tim Horton's......we went to the 7th street location. Think homeless people and drugged out weirdos next to mommy's with strollers all being hovered over by security. An interesting collection of people inside a dirty little store. Not the type of Timmy Ho's I am used to but hey its still Timmy's and I enjoyed it!

Calgary was bigger than I remembered (25 years ago) but still reminded me of Denver 15 years ago before the outside swell of humans. The people weren't as friendly as Montreal but compared to the wads down in Denver they were still pretty chilled and super PC (and of course the magic word is hockey). The road design seems to be quite antiquated...I read that they encourage mass transit downtown because of that. I did putz around the saddle dome/fan attic and my wife kaboshed the Calgary Beer fest.....(oh well it was pricey anyways). I would not go back to stay in Calgary downtown unless I was for sure seeing the Flames. Its a young western city.....but its still Canada and getting a chance to do my Canadian things in Canada is always a plus. The wife wants to go back up to Banff but I'd stay in Canmore. I wouldn't say I was disappointed as the Banff/Lake Louise trip was nice and I can have fun spending time with my wife doing nothing anyway. Overall the the whole trip value was meh (weather probably had a lot to do with it)....and it crosses something off my list. Not a lot of bang for the buck north of the border it seems so definitely something to consider for next time.

Having US customs at the airport in Calgary was a nice touch and the WestJet experience was pleasant.

Looks like this will be as close as I get....

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