When I began writing this post I started to say we have been rather lazy these past couple of months, but between golfing, going to the gym and time with family and friends we kept pretty busy. Just not doing things worth writing about if you’re looking for travel inspiration for Calgary 😂
The main reason we return to Calgary every year is so Blair can spend time with his 96 year old Mother. We also had cousins visiting during the Stampede, a good friend moving house in early July who required our help, and we found out my brother in law is potentially moving within the next year. This meant we had to relocate our few possessions from his basement to a friends garage. It was a good time to sort through some boxes, not that we have much left anymore.
24 years ago when we moved to the Cayman Islands we left behind all our winter clothing and ski gear. At that time we had no idea we would likely not spend another winter in Canada and probably never ski again. Fast forward to 2026 and it was time to sort through those ski bags that were packed so long ago. We were able to donate our ski outfits to a charity as well as a lot of miscellaneous clothing that I had used as packing material when we shipped our boxes back to Canada from Grand Cayman. We came across some winter items that we have added to our suitcase and will be put to good use during our cruise to Antarctica next January.
Shortly after we landed back in Calgary we spent time with my second cousin’s from the UK who were here to attend the Calgary Stampede and then head out on a fabulous road trip all the way to Vancouver Island. It has been a few years since we have seen each other and we enjoyed showing them a little bit of Calgary.
We still have our own golf clubs so we spent a lot of time this summer golfing with Blair’s two brothers and their wives. The city courses are a great price and an enjoyable way to spend a couple of hours in the sunshine.
Once I recovered from the cold I picked up on our way back to Canada, we reactivated our membership at the Mount Royal University gym. It’s a large gym of over 14,000 sq ft and with students out for the summer it’s pretty quiet in there, it got busy in September when the students returned to school.
35 years ago Blair and I were part of a social running group here in Calgary. I have maintained friendships with most of the ladies in the group and was delighted when a few of us got together for an evening before we left on our next round of travels.
There were a few nomads passing through Calgary over the summer so we enjoyed a couple of meet ups with fellow travelers. After the first group meet-up in July we saw Peter & Karen twice more during our time in Calgary. They were in South America last winter and have been to many of the same places we are planning to go to over the next 8 months. They happily let us pick their brains for hours on end giving us some great tips and suggestions.
We took advantage of this lull in our travels to finalize more plans for our adventures in South America. We have spent very little time in this part of the world, it will be a good opportunity to visit some new countries on our wish list, and set foot on the Antarctic continent 🐧
We’ve had a wonderful summer in Calgary but the feet are getting itchy and its time to head south. First stop, Mexico City…..
TRIP TIPS
While working on future travel reservations we learned something new regarding booking airline tickets. Aerolineas Argentinas has two price tiers, one for people outside the country and one for people inside the country at the time of purchase. After days of frustration it was suggested to me by a fellow traveler that I use an incognito window in Chrome and put in an Argentina address when asked for my address. So, all our personal info, passport info and credit card info was correct but on the payment page I put in the address of our AirBnb in Buenos Aires. I was surprised when the ticket purchase went through!!!!! This little trick saved us USD $1,000 💪