Patti and I are exploring Calgary this week, staying with her son. Our respective husbands dropped us at the airport just before 8am. We were flying Westjet from Terminal 3 which was very quiet with lots of self check-in terminals and baggage drop off lanes available.
Toronto Pearson airport has a new security appointment booking service available for some flights and ours was eligible for it. I booked for 830 which gave us a window for jumping the security line between 815 and 845. Check-in was so quick that we were at security by 810 but they let us go through anyway ahead of the people lined up that hadn’t booked. It worked very well and we were at the gate with coffee before 830.
The flight left on time. The air quality was very poor from forest fire smoke, and it wasn’t long before we were up into smoky clouds and couldn’t see a thing.
The plane flew up the west side of the Bruce Peninsula where the air was clear, and we were able to see Manitoulin island as we flew over it.
Calgary Airport has a complementary passenger transportation system that runs on its own little internal road, and can carry 10 people at a time, and is wheelchair accessible.
We got an Uber from the airport to the apartment, dropped off our stuff, and headed out for a late lunch at the OEB Breakfast Club.
4 St SW, from 17 Ave SW to 26 Ave SW had many restaurants and cafés with patios protected by colourful jersey walls.
It was hard to believe that this view of the elbow River was right in a built-up area of the city.
We picked up some groceries for the next couple breakfasts and dinner tonight.
We are sharing the apartment with this lovely orange cat who is incredibly friendly.
After a dinner of cod and salad, we went for a walk on 17 St SW which was also lined for blocks and blocks with restaurants and patios.
Tompkins Park had moveable tables and chairs, and a band shell where there is entertainment on summer evenings.
There was also a public bathrooms at one end of the park made by a company Exeloo. They are “permanent, self cleaning fixtures with automatic doors, that open and close like an elevator, complete the Star Trek sound effects.”
I’ve already seen a lot of murals, many of them very large, which I always appreciate in a city.
It doesn’t get dark until after 10 o’clock here. We didn’t end up in bed until midnight so have effectively already accounted for the two hours time change.
Tomorrow we plan to ride from Canmore to Banff.
Discover more from Lisa Stokes
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.