Hey all you Calgary (and Alberta) Dopers - how does an End of Summer (sob) Dopefest sound to you? The evening of Saturday, September 1, at a yet-to-be-determined location (but one with lots of good beer and good food)? We can get together and have some food and cry in our beers about how short the summers always are.
Frank, think you can get here by then? 
It sounds lovely, but September 1 wouldn’t work for me. I won’t have a handy babysitter for the first week of September.
But you guys can have a beer for me. 
Hey, they’re not that short. We should still have two weeks before the snow flies.
Seriously, the first of September looks good for us. And I second the idea that Frank needs to make the effort to get here!
Pretty much any Thursdays work for us. Saturdays are a bit more complicated due to
babysitters having this thoroughly unreasonable desire for a social life. However, we do have a very bookish God-daughter, bless her little heart, who might appreciate the chance for a bit of get ahead studying before starting 9th grade. We will watch this thread.
Let’s see if we can get this one in before **Spoons **head back up North to school. We haven’t seen him nor Spoonette in a long while.
My gosh, weren’t y’all just talking about what you were going to plant once the snows cleared?
Yeah, that was last week. Stuff grows fast in Alberta.
I’d love to make it out there, but it doesn’t look like it’ll work for at least a month. 
Yes. What’s your point?
Yes, if I win the lottery twice, no problem. I would, in fact, if I had that much money to blow, take the train. I think that would be a cool trip.
You’re kidding, aren’t you? Do you know about Western Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and the Badlands? IMHO the best train ride in Canada is through the Rockies, but then I haven’t been East of Ontariario.
It is a cool trip–I’ve done it. I didn’t need to win the lottery to take it, though it was more expensive than flying.
Trupa, it would be great to see you and Mrs Trupa too!
Yeah, I’ve hitch-hiked across the country - or at least 2/3rds of it - from Montreal to Vancouver, then back to Toronto. Back in the 70’s, that was. The north side of Lake Superior was wonderful; so were the Rockies. And, yes, if I liked the idea of Saskatchewan, I’d be living there, but I’d rather train through it than drive. (It’s hereditary. You’ll note that my grandparents were born in Saskatchewan, but none of their children were.) I hear that the train through the Maritimes is quite nice.
I plan on doing a lot of exploring in the next few years. I want to visit the Maritimes, and N&L, and the territories. And Thompson, Manitoba - on my hitching trip, I got a ride from a guy who tried to talk me into going to work in a mine up there; I should see what I’ve been missing all these years.
I was thinking of the hell that drive is. The area around Lake of the Woods in Ontario is some of the most breathtakingly beautiful scenery I have ever laid eyes on.
When you go to northern Manitoba, make sure you hit Churchill and the polar bear tour.When I was living in The Pas, I knew a woman who did the polar bear tour, and she said the bears came right up and shook the tour bus. Who wouldn’t pay for that?!
Recently I caught a special on TV about the trains (it was either on CBC or CTV) and they showed some of the run through the Maritimes.
It was gorgeous.
One thing on my life list is to take a train ride across Canada.
{Bump}
So - anyone else? We’re talking food and beer here, people. Food AND beer.
Well, food and beer always get my attention!
Hope we can do it on the suggested date. I’ll be up in Edmonton for some time after that, and while I’ll be back in Calgary for short periods, I have no way of knowing (now) when those will be.
Thought I’d give this a bump, since the planned date is coming up fast. Any ideas where we might like to go?
Thanks for the email heads up featherlou. I’m in and I don’t care where we go. I have appointments on Saturday so 6:00pm would be the earliest I could be anywhere.
We’re up too. Trying to roundup babysitting at the moment. If we can’t, we’ll flip to see who gets to go.
How about that pub on 16th near SAIT we went to last time? I forget the name, but the beer selection was plentiful, and the food pretty good.
I woke up with a cold that’s been steadily intensifying all day. I’m going to have to cancel. I don’t want to infect you nice folks. Now, if y’all were jerks I’d be there just to lick your forks when you weren’t looking. 