Summer in Alberta means rodeo season and this year we opted to try a couple of smaller venues instead of the big rodeo at the Calgary Stampede. We are not far from Sundre and after 6 years, we had yet to attend the Sundre Pro rodeo; for 2025 they expanded the rodeo to 4 days and this was perfect for mid-week date night! A quick car ride into town and we were perched in the stands and ready for some rodeo action! It was a super fun night – not only is it pro rodeo, its also beginner rodeo and fun to see the young kids trying to wrangle sheep, small calves and horses. Here’s a very short snippet of what we saw:  Sundre-pro-rodeo.html

Before we knew it, poor Ruby had been sitting on her RV perch for almost a month! It had been a busy start to the summer between yachting in BC, bus maintenance, car maintenance, mini family reunions, rodeo’s and golfing we were surprised when we realized Ruby had been stationary for way too long and it was time to get moving!

A couple days later we found ourselves driving north up highway 2 towards Ponoka, AB for the July long weekend at the annual Ponoka Stampede,  Yahoo! We had also NEVER been to this rodeo, but had heard great things about it year after year. This is the last rodeo stop for all Pro rodeo cow-people before the Calgary Stampede, so we knew were in for some fun times and good rodeo’ing! Todd’s mum had been to this rodeo many times before and she said to us, if the campground is full, you can park anywhere in town and its free. This seemed like a strange thing and we didn’t really believe her. Two hours later we arrived and headed straight to the campgrounds; low and behold, they were all full. We double backed to the highway and picked a flat spot to sit in the ditch along with a few other campers, which was only a  ½ km from the stampede grounds, so this seemed like the best spot. As the weekend got closer, more RV’ers arrived in the ditch and the town even puts out houses and garbage bins in the ditch for us campers! For the next 4 days we walked to the stampede grounds at least twice a day – in the afternoon for rodeo and evening for chuckwagon races and live bands (Dean Brody, High Valley). We really enjoyed the rodeo here….reasonable prices, good seats, the vibe was way more chill and family oriented…overall a great bang for the buck! Here is a short chuckwagon video and the concerts we saw: Chucks-and-concerts.html We also spent time visiting with some of Todd’s cousins that stopped by the bus for a beer, had a couple of overnight guests, visits with Todd’s boys and Keo, had a few propane fire’s, fantastic bus barbeques, a parade and even a couple of bike rides around town. Here are a few photo’s and video’s of our fun time: Ponoka-stampede.html

The weather was far from perfect – typical sun, rain down pour, thunder and lightening followed by power outages at the rodeo and even a bull escaped into the crowd one day….It was a crazy and very fun time!

We were back at the Sundre property for a few days visiting with family and getting a few of those annoying jobs done like staining, staining and more staining. Todd bought a “new to us” skid steer for the cabin property which came in handy for the gravel loads that were ordered the next day…. but after 5 days of work, we were done with chores, packed Ruby and headed a short 60 mins south to the Calaway Park RV Park. This location is the closest RV park to the city of Calgary….we had a lot going on and even though it was Calgary Stampede week, we didn’t make it to any cowboy events. (Sidenote: for anyone wanting to camp during Stampede, the RV park has a daily shuttle to and from the grounds and its a good location). It was wedding week in the family and there were back-to-back-to-back activities for 5 days, so thought it was best to hang out at this RV location to be close to all the activities. Some of those activities included BBQ at sisters, picking up sisters from airport, bar visit with friends, making brunch for the groom and groomsmen, actual wedding and post wedding lunchy party. Here are a few Wedding-photos.html Aside from the big wedding, there were also multiple birthdays in the mix that had to be celebrated (should out to my bro Tim, sister Jules, friends Wade and Velvet)….it was a BUSY week! Also, we mostly forgot to take pictures of pretty much everything….so what you saw and what you see is all you get!

Post wedding pics of familia

Ditto

With the wedding over…..the next event on the calendar was a quick overnight in the town of Redcliff, AB so that we could get to a music festival before noon the next day. We departed Calaway RV park by 9:15 (here’s our departure: Leaving-calaway-rv-park.html )and got through the city fairly quickly considering it was slightly the end of rush hour on a weekday. As we drove past Strathmore, we saw a guy hitchhiking on the highway and Todd asked me if we should pick him up. I said YES we should! He was a man with a purpose and very heavy backpack. Isaac was his name, and he was from Quebec and on his way back east. He had started out in Penticton, BC on Sunday and his destination was Portage la Prairie, MB (which just so happen to be Jill’s birthplace). We could only take him as far as we were going, which was Medicine Hat. Over the next hour we got to know a bit more about Isaac and how he ended up here on the highway. We actually asked him if he wanted to camp with us in Redcliffe that night as we had a tent he could sleep in and there were free showers at the campground and we could feed him dinner. He jumped on the opportunity, and as we got settled in to our site, our friends pulled in. The 5 of us had a great night around the campfire sharing stories and laughs! We were packed up and gone by 9:45 the next morning to drop Isaac off on the side of highway 1 & 3 in Medicine Hat; we shared our socials, wished him all the best, hugged him like a son, sent him with a lunch and a few $ to tide him over as he headed eastbound. Safe travels young man!

While we headed 30 km down the highway to a “new to us” music festival called Quonset Days; our bus group only found out about this festival last year and 2025 was their 15^th year in operation! The venue is on private farmland; there are limited camping spots (approx. 130) and only about 1500 attendees per day that come to this amazing music festival where the entire goal is to raise as much money as possible for ALS. From the moment we turned onto the property and met the family that has organized this festival, we knew that we will be coming back every year! Here is the link to the event: Quonsetdays.com

The general gist is: first night is a radio station sponsored secret concert where no one knows who the secret concert is until they get on stage. The surprise concert was an excellent show, especially because you can stand as close as you want to the stage! Here are a few photos: Quonset-days.html Day 2 & 3 gates open at 4 pm and they have 4 concert shows per night and also other fun activities like tractor races, silent auction, 50/50 tickets and a live auction. Todd & I might have become famous when we inspired the “hold my drink hustle” check that out here: https://www.facebook.com/reel/673005522423533/?s=single_unit I’m pretty sure that was when Aaron Goodvin was playing “Lonely Drum”.

The entire festival is so well organized, the grounds are spotless, full of volunteers doing amazing jobs, delicious food trucks and top-notch Canadian entertainment such as: Jess Moskaluke, Mackenzie Porter, Morgan Klaiber, Matt Lang, Owen Riegling and Default. Here are a few music snippets: Quonset-days-music-snippets.html Our entire group loved this event from start to finish! Thanks to the Quonset Days family, organizers and volunteers we had the BEST time and we can’t wait to see you next year. Who knew our July would be so filled with live music and concerts?!

Todd and I weren’t ready to head Ruby back to the Sundre area, so we pit stopped for 2 days at Dinosaur Provincial Park. We aren’t sure why we had never been here before, so what I’m saying to you is put this place on your radar! Apparently, we missed an “atmospheric river” situation the day before and the park was very wet and muddy – which is rare for this to happen in the desert. Regardless, by the time we got setup, the park was mostly dry and there were lots of activities to do (bike ride, hikes, museum and an old cabin with real Alberta history!) but one of the coolest things they have is actual dinosaur bones out in the desert rock that you could look at up closely.

Ruby in the campground. Also apparently we have cactuses in Alberta. Who knew?!!!

We kinda thought we were on the moon during our time here. It was pretty cool!

All this seemed like a pretty good deal – aside from the crazy mosquito’s, we spent 2 days here and saw pretty much everything. Not surprising for this summer, the rain came in overnight and it was cold….so we packed Ruby up and headed back to our home base.