Bruce Campbell and Us

Our photo from Fan Expo 09 with Bruce Campbell came through the post, and a piccy of it was emailed to us (thanks Angela!). It was a really exciting day meeting him.

Searching for the Hoodoo's

We went for a walk to find the Hoodoo's, some strange rock formations on the banks of the Bow River. The trail went up and down Tunnel Mountain.



These are them. We didn't end up getting too close, but they are quite massive.

There's a boat trip down the river, looks like fun.

Calgary and Sonata Arctica / Dragonforce

We went to Calgary for the day. Angela bought me tickets to a gig at the Uni there for my birthday.
Banff Coach Terminal is the same place as the Railway Terminal. This angry one-armed robot told us to stop.

Calgary is a bit of a strange place. I'd been excited to go there as we'd heard it was like a scaled-down Toronto, but to be honest it was a bit of a disappointment. I don't know if it was just the way we walked through the city, but it was tons and tons of office blocks and car parks, and no shops.

The city centre was smaller than Oxford, with much less to see and do. As it's known for it's farming and horses and stuff, I wonder if it's more interesting outside of the city.

In contrast the Uni campus was brilliant - really big and really well equipped with shops and places to eat. I imagine the student's there don't really leave the campus. The building above is MacEwan Hall, where the gig was.

Sonata Arctica were brilliant! They've been my favourite band for a few years now, so it was amazing to see them live at last.





Dragonforce, who headlined, were awesome also. We've seen them once before in Oxford and loved it. They played a slightly different set tonight.


Dave Macintosh's mighty drum kit.

The keyboardists from Dragonforce and Sonata Arctica had a super fast, power metal keytar duel, it was wicked.

More Banff misc.

Tunnel Mountain is the mountain our hostel is on. We went on a walk down Tunnel Mountain Drive to town, there are some brilliant views from along the road.



Here's a boring fact I found interesting: It's called Tunnel Mountain, but it doesn't actually have a tunnel running through it. When putting in the rail road they surveyed the area and planned a tunnel. A second survey showed they didn't need one and could go round the mountain, but the name stuck anyway.


When you said you were going job hunting...

We saw this deer (or elk?) when we walked through the Banff Centre grounds. It's a big artist's retreat place. The deer wasn't scared of us at all.

Named after the guy from X-Men (possibly).


The hostel is next to a big campsite, also with some good views of the mountains.


Here's more of the river that runs through town. These show a bit more the weird colour of the water.


Someone's Harley. There's a few of these about, same as Niagara, they seem to be associated with holiday seasons and destinations.

Trapper Shop

We went in this trapper fur shop. It was a bit grisly inside. I kept thinking of Ace Ventura, entering a room full of hunted and taxidermied animals :
Cadby: "Something wrong Mr. Ventura?"
Ace: "Of course not, this is a lovely room of death."

Banff misc.

The public bins here are all designed with a locking mechanism to keep bears out.

Anti Bear spray

Lucy photographed this deer, right outside the window of the hostel this morning.

A view from Banff Avenue in town.

Homo Milk, how rude! Angela told us we'd see this at some point, it's homogenized and good for you. Funny name though.

This is the 2nd Mountie we've seen in Canada. I'm beginning to think they're all made of wood.

We went on the free bus to the cable cars (called gondola's - I thought that was something else). The view from the platform was amazing, we were higher up so a proper unobstructed view of the Rocky Mountains.




We stopped at a river on the way back to town. The water round here (though you can't really see it in this photo) has a weird turquoise tint to it, something to do with sulphur coming off the glaciers.