Enjoying the Calgary Stampede Parade (Short Version)

The Calgary Stampede Parade is on the first Friday of the Stampede, in the morning.

Here are some tips to make your Parade experience as much fun as possible.

Update: After writing this, I got more ambitious and wrote a little more detailed list, with a few extra tips I thought of later.

• Don't drive downtown. There are street closures for the Parade all morning. Take the C-Train, a bus, whatever works.

• Go late. Just because some people want to be at the Parade at the crack of dawn, doesn't mean you have to. The Parade starts at 8:55 a.m. and is about two hours long. The route is 4.5 km (about 3 miles). It takes until about noon for the end of the Parade to reach the end of the route. If you catch a 9 a.m. C-Train, there will be next to no one on it. You can walk to a viewing place on 9th Avenue SW (the end part of the Parade route) and still see an hour or two of Parade goodness.

• Don't carry a lot of stuff. Dress for the weather, but leave the lawnchair at home. If you get tired of standing to watch the Parade, walk around a bit.

• After the Parade, don't be in a big hurry to leave downtown. The C-Trains will be full. It's a nice time to stroll over to Prince's Island, get an ice cream cone, watch ducks, and just relax. The downtown restaurants and food courts will be open for lunch.

• Be friendly. You can meet people from all over the world at the Parade. It's fun to chat and compare notes about your travels.

The Parade is worth seeing. Wear a cowboy hat and jeans if you brought them, you'll blend right in.