Lilac Festival and Burgers on the Roof

This past Sunday we attended our first Lilac Festival in Calgary. The street festival is an annual event that organized in 1989 has been running for twenty-four years. The festival takes place along thirteen blocks of 4th Street and features hundreds of vendors and food trucks. Several stages are set up along the route with performances by local and international artists. There is real urban vibe, and people watching is the top attraction. An estimated 120,000 people attended the festival enjoying the sunshine, entertainment and beer gardens. The best part? It's one block from our house! No traffic or parking worries. What more do you need for a great festival?

After the festival, twenty of our friends showed up to help us christen our roof top deck. We enjoyed some great burgers and "delish" side dishes made by some excellent cooks! There was special entertainment by Allegra, the daughter of friends Angela and Jeff, who entertained us with amazing tunes on her fiddle. She is a member of the Bow Valley Fiddlers. Thank you, Allegra! We may just have to make this an annual event!

120,000 people attended!

The festival started out with a parade of local characters.

A rider in the Mission Bikers Club

This guy was selling his special blend of spices in  one of the booths.

Hula-hoopers in the parade.

Giant peacock woman. She was about  twelve feet tall.

Our cool mayor! Somebody ran up and gave him this hat and he wore it in the parade.

This guy was in the "Be Happy" club.

Falun Gong drummers...

Belly dancers

Interesting couple just watching the parade. Now Jim wants a hat with a clock.

Jazz trio in the parade

Hungarian Club

Beautiful Stampede Rodeo Queens

Jim and "Mr. Anytime Fitness" Neither of them were wearing padding...

Yours Truly at Joyce on 4th beer garden visiting our favorite server, Brittany.

Lots of kids with their faces painted. 

Bow Valley Fiddlers on the Youth Stage. Allegra is front row and center.

Another cute kid with his face painted.

Angela and I watching her daughter Allegra.

Just a cool guy on the street

Excellent "break dancers" entertained between sets on the Main Stage.

A friend from yoga, Jocelyn, performed on the Main Stage.

Taken from our balcony. Lots of interesting people walking by.

Deb and Jim in the "Lilac" spirit.

Les, Roy and Deb on our roof.

Doug and Jim 

Don eating his hamburger...

Judy, Jeff and Guy

Melissa and Sienna

Ida and Carol

Allegra, Rory, Angela and Avan

Allegra playing her fiddle for us

Golf in Crowsnest Pass, BC

This past weekend was a long holiday weekend in Canada known as Victoria Day. We drove south to Whitefish, MT for the long weekend and took in some hiking and golfing. We took quite a few pictures so I'll split them up over the next several posts. 

On the way to Whitefish, we stopped in British Columbia for some "mountain golf." The course is set in Crowsnest Pass, which is located in southeast BC and is the southernmost rail and highway route through the Canadian Rockies and also the lowest-elevation mountain pass in Canada. 

These little community courses don't get many visitors. It's mostly locals that play the course, so they were really happy to see some new faces and were excited to tell us all about the "bear sightings" on the course. Really? Should we take our bear spray? We were encouraged to take a power cart instead of using our pull-carts, and after hearing about the bears, we decided that might be a good idea. No bears were sighted, and we enjoyed some great scenery. 

First green on the Crowsnest golf course.

I match the ladies' tee markers. Cute little crows.

Golf stud.

I'm pretty sure my ball was in that trap.

Hard to concentrate on golf with views like this!

Glad I wasn't pushing my cart on these hills.

Elk along the highway to Whitefish.

Double rainbow on the way into Whitefish.

We stayed at Grouse Mountain Lodge. A grouse looks like a mini turkey.

Apgar Lookout Trail in Glacier Park, MT

While we were in Whitefish, we visited Glacier National Park. Due to the thirty foot of snowfall this past winter, the roads are still closed past Avalanche trail head, about fourteen miles into the park. We hiked one of the lower trails in the park to avoid as much snow as possible. The trail is named after Milo Apgar who was among one of the first families to settle at Lake McDonald in the 1890's. 

Sooo, one of the first things you notice is the number of dead trees leftover from the massive Robert Fire of 2003. 2003 marked the fifth year of a five-year drought and became one of the worst fire seasons in the park's history. More than 136,000 acres burned. That's 13% of the park!

After the five-and-a-half mile slog uphill (and I emphasize uphill) we had beautiful views of lake McDonald and surrounding areas. We put in an extra two miles from the parking lot since access to the trail head was shut down, making for an eleven mile round trip. Hooey Jim Bob and me was tuckered out!

Quarter Circle Bridge over the Flathead river. The blue water is from a smaller tributary.

The start of our hike going over the Flathead river.

You can see where the smaller blue tributary mixes in with the brown Flathead river.

The undergrowth of the burned out forest.

No tall pines here, just undergrowth.

Coming around the east side of the ridge. Flathead river below.

Almost to the top!

Top of the ridge, looking at Lake McDonald

Incredible views of Lake McDonald.

Tired and sweaty sitting on top of the Apgar Lookout station (I'm tired, he's sweaty).

This is the mountain we hiked up today!