Our visit in Calgary just so happened to be during the Calgary Stampede. We really didn’t plan to be there for the Stampede, but since we were, we had to go check it out. Our first visit was on Friday, the opening day of the Stampede, so it was pretty busy. Amy and the kids and I went early in the day so we would have some time to check out the rides, games and shows. Eric, Katie and Nino met us at the Stampede around 6 and we all went to the Grandstand Show together.

We had a great evening, but it was close to midnight when we finally got back to Amy and Katie’s apartment. Eric, Katie and Nino had taken the train and arrived back before the rest of us who were in Amy’s car. We had left our truck parked out in front of their Apartment building, but when Eric got back, he found that our truck was no longer there. We thought at first that maybe it had been towed, although we weren’t sure why since it was in a parking zone. We called the tow company number, but when they told us that they had no record of our truck, we called the police. Turns out our truck had been stolen while we were at the stampede. Soooo, we filed a police report and called our insurance company, and spent the night at Amy and Katie’s apartment. The next day our insurance company lined up a rental for us while we waited to see if our truck would show up. We didn’t have to wait long. We got a call on Sunday morning saying that they had found our truck on the side of the road an hour North of Calgary. It was leaking fluid, and wouldn’t start, but there didn’t seem to be much physical damage done. So that brings us to now. We were told that we just have to wait while the insurance company has the truck moved to another facility so they can assess the damage and decide if they want to repair it, or write it off. It has been a week and a half and we just got to go take a look at the truck today. It seems that the theives took absolutely everything they could from the truck…the radio, generator, diesel extension tank, our hitch, the rear view mirror, centre console, books, glasses and all of our paperwork were missing.

We had to have our trailer towed by CAA to another RV park after our two weeks that we had booked were up. The park we were at in Okotoks was booked solid and didn’t have any other spots available for us to move to. We weren’t sure if ours would be considered an emergency situation by CAA, but luckily it was and they towed us to another park no problem. So we will be in Calgary for another week or so likely. We are hoping things start moving quickly, but that doesn’t seem to be the pace at which they work. It is very frustrating. One bonus to this whole thing, is that our rental is wwayyyyyyy better on gas than our big ol truck!

We did go back to the Stampede again, this time for the Rodeo. The kids went to a thrift store with Amy and they found some cowboy boots, plaid shirts and hats for us to wear to the Rodeo so we could feel like cowboys too.

Although it really stinks that this happened to us, we have been saying that it couldn’t have happened in a better place. We are getting to spend lots of extra quality time with Amy and Katie! I’m sure they will breathe a small sigh of relief when all of our craziness finally hits the road again! Look for our next post coming to you soon from….Calgary!