7 June. Visiting with Phil and Christine in Calgary

Calgary is an impressive city.  With 1.2 million residents, it's a jewel of mid-west north America.  It's clean as a whistle.  The people are nearly excessively friendly.  The whole place exudes a culture of excellence. We liked it a lot.  We had a chance to visit the downtown area when John had to leave his bike wheel behind for repair.  The bike shop spoke to what seems to be a standard for this town that hosted the 1988 Winter Olympics.  We got to the shop when it opened and four mechanics took in repairs from locals much the same way you might leave your car with a service adviser at your local dealer.  ...enter in the computer, give you a call when it's ready.  There were six additional mechanics "downstairs." The shop was enormous and better stocked than either John or I had ever seen.  This is just a small example of what we came to expect from this town.  Visit. You will not be disappointed.

We all met Christine Oliver and Phil Waldenberger at a Santana Tandem Tour event based out of Durango, Colorado in 2010.  We vowed to stay in touch, but, of course, did not.  That until we knew we were coming to Calgary. We joined Phil and Christine at the 1620 World Bier Haus.  And guess what?  ...they served some local Calgary brews which we sampled to provide the US stamp of approval. They all qualify.

The Elbow River is dammed in west-central Calgary to form the Glenmore Reservoir.  It was just a short walk behind our restaurant. We hit it just before sunset at around 9:15PM.  It's a beautiful place, but somehow we got on the subject of geocaching. I swear, it was not I who brought it up.  I pulled up my trusty app on the smartphone and found that a geocache was hidden just 200 feet from where we stood.  

It would be very hard to overstate Phil's excitement as he came up with the geocache hidden under a rock.  I think he's hooked.  Garmin, get ready.