Day 188 Calgary to Airdrie, Alberta

Wow, day 188 already, and it seems like an eternity since the summer and fall days at the start of the relay back in Atlantic Canada.

After breakfast, I went back up to my room for a minute and the t.v. just happened to be on CTV , and they were interviewing Lisa from our marcomms (marketing and communications) team. CTV was doing a live broadcast from St. Mary's high school in Calgary, where day 188 of the 25th anniversary Rick Hansen relay was starting from.

they also interviewed a couple of the medal bearers, including Leanne.

They school band was getting warmed up as well.

and another interview with Randy.

Back down in the lobby I saw Kyle and Lonnie our endurance athlete. After one month on the road with us it was time to say good-bye. I will miss his sense of humor and his positive, upbeat demeanour. He represented the relay well.

I was back on shuttle bus today with Kyle, and we took a cab out to the bus (5 kilometres from the hotel). It was cold, but not as much snow to scrape off as yesterday.

Still a little ice on the windshield as we head out to our first medal bearer meeting point of the day.

Crossing the Bow river, with the city in the far background.

Branton junior high school was prepared for our arrival.

Class is in session! Kyle is teaching Rick Hansen 101

Now there's a statement!

The students all came out onto the street in anticipation of the arrival of the relay. CTV also had 3 on air personalities in our medal bearer group to take part in the experience.

There's that Canadian pride I saw so much of on the Olympic Torch Relay .

 Following our pilot vehicle, heading down 16th ave. north in Calgary.

The "Craig cam", Craig is documenting his medal experience from start to finish, awesome!

We drove by this architectural marvel, a new campus building for SAIT (southern Alberta institute of technology.)

Another relay first, Dave ( who has suffered a brain injury), wanted to do his segment on his own cycle that was built just for him. Congratulations, Dave!

What is wrong with this picture? (Nothing in the eyes of the relay). but I noticed looking in the side mirror, there was no traffic coming. The relay has temporarily closed down the east bound lanes on 16th ave, which happens to be one of the busiest streets in Calgary and more affectionately known as Trans-Canada Highway 1

After Kyle and I finished dropping off the last medal bearers in our group, it was time to head north on highway 2, not as far as Edmonton, but to Airdrie, (population 40,000)  about 30 kilometres from Calgary.

Kyle and I had to make a pit stop at the Wal-Mart in Airdrie to pick-up a couple neccessities like toothepaste, tooth brush, deodorant, (okay, you get the picture)

In the store I saw this story about Rick and our end of day celebration in Calgary on Sunday. (day 187 in our world)

Our meeting point and our end of day celebration was at the Airdrie Legion.

We had our meeting in the lounge section of the Legion, another relay first.

Our end of day medal bearer, Cedric, is a veteran, and a long time member of the legion. I think a pint was certainly in order!

The sun is definately shining on another group of difference makers.

CTV (who are a sponsor) set up a remote satellite truck outside of the legion.

A panoramic of shuttle back at the legion after we dropped off all of our medal bearers, and the convoy coming down the road towards our end of day location .

Here come our end of day medal bearer, Cedric, and his contingent.

Which included fellow members of the legion in their uniforms. (actually, Cedric had his uniform on under his yellow jacket!)

Back at the end of day celebration, Jeremy congratulates Cedric.

and Kyle and I head back for our last night in Cowtown

Okay, how does that saying go, it's good to be lucky? after I dropped Kyle off at the hotel I decided to wash the bus and on the way back to parking I got a little off track, but I ended up in this residential area above the Saddledome and with a pretty incredible view of Calgary. He shoots he scores!!!