Canadian Holiday Day 2 : Tuesday Sept 9th
We woke up reasonably late (by UK time) or early (Calgary time), depending on your point of view. It meant that we had a leisurely start to the day, and we found our way eventually to the hotel restaurant for a buffet-style breakfast. Then, on Stephen’s recommendation the evening before, we strolled a couple of blocks East to see the Devonian Gardens. These are very impressive – mainly pools of water (with plenty of fish), with surrounding banks of plants, plus others hanging down in pots; and they are all four floors up in a city centre tower-block.
Then back to the car-park (parkade), to collect the car, and off towards Nanton, some 55 miles south on the road to Lethbridge - Katie took over the driving when we were well out of the city, and tried the Mustang. Eulene had told us that the countryside between Calgary and Nanton was very similar to that in Saskatchewan near Rama, where Great-Grandfather T W Moores had settled; it seemed to match the descriptions in his autobiographies well, plenty of ponds and streams (spelled sloughs and pronounced slews). We found Miriam’s house on the 2nd attempt, and it was good to meet her, look at photographs and get to know her. Miriam has photocopies from Aunt Olive of T.W.Moore’s autobiography, and also has a copy of Lillian Garland Moore’s diary (transcribed in Aunt Olive’s handwriting) which she will copy to us bit by bit for inclusion on the web-site. Then back to Calgary again, and this time we drove straight to the hotel and into the parkade with no problems.
There was a little time until dusk (when we had arranged to meet Stephen again), so we took the (free) C-train to the Olympic Plaza, which is a sort of urban park commemorating the Winter Olympics. There are fountains, and the names, winning times and nationality of all the gold medallists are carved on plaques around the area. It was good to see, but after a while we were ready to move on; we walked back to the hotel, passing the Calgary Tower (where we heard a carillon), and later met Stephen and had a meal out with him.
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