A Museum, A Walk, and Light Rail

 Calgary, AB

CTrain to the Museum, Sorta

Today we walked downtown again to catch The CLine, Calgary's Light Rail, to the Contemporary Calgary Museum.  It was raining and we were excited to see the train pull up so we jumped on.  The downtown stops are subsidized by TD Ameritrade so you don't need a ticket when riding in the fare free zone.  We were only riding a few stops so what could go wrong?  Well, if you guessed that we got on the wrong line, you are right!  We hopped on the Red Line and we were supposed to take the Blue Line.  It was a rookie public transit error.  Our train soon turned away from the museum and headed north out of the fare free zone.  We got off at the first stop and figured out walking directions to the museum.  It's pretty great when your biggest mistake of the day results in a nice walk.  

The small green band mentions the TD Ameritrade Free Zone

The shelter has words written on it but I can't find any info about it.

You can buy your ticket here if you are planning on heading outside the fare free zone.  We weren't planning on heading out of the fare free zone so we dodged the fare in a different way.

Donna smiling.  This was right before we realized we were on the wrong train.  Happy Times!

The train had the usual suspects for transit riding and ridership looks pretty good.

We got off the train and said goodbye and started our unexpected, but nice walk.

The livery for the CTrain looks pretty dated.

We saw a nice covered skate park.

We got to cross another cool footbridge over the Bow River.

I do love a good footbridge!

And we had good views of anther footbridge while we were walking across a footbridge!  My kind of town!  This is the Peace Bridge that is featured in many YouTuber videos.

This, believe it or not, is a surf spot.  I assume you have to wait until the snowmelt gets the river flowing more.

Here is the sign that talks about surfing here and surf etiquette.  Here is a video of the surfing that I found.

The Contemporary Calgary

Our ultimate destination was The Contemporary Calgary, a contemporary art museum in Calgary.  They really nailed the name.  Our NARM pass doesn't work here so we had to pay but it was with Canadian Dollars so it wasn't that bad.  

On the way in, we walked by the station we were supposed to get off at.  It was right across the street.

We knew we were getting close when we saw the light post with all of the old museum stickers on it.

The museum is a cool looking brutalist building, but more rounded than other brutalist buildings I have seen.

Derek Liddington's exhibit has the walls decorated as well as art hanging.

The individual pieces didn't have names mentioned.

Winnie Truong's work is cut paper collage flowers. 

She also includes the feminine form in her work.  

We saw the CTrain approaching from a window in the museum.

One floor was dedicated to art you can buy.  It appears to be an annual fund raiser.  
Haphazard - Nancy Boyd

You scan the QR code and enter your bid.

There was a lot of cool art, including art by artists that were featured in the museum.

I also liked this piece.  
My Warhol Is On Loan - Maggie Hall

McHappiness - Lucy Sparrow

The museum map was pretty artsy too.

After our museum visit we walked across the street and caught the Blue Line back downtown.  

At stops, the doors that weren't opening lit up red.  The doors that were opening lit up green.  It was pretty cool.

There is a strip above the window that could be mistaken for a stop request strip but it is an Assistance request strip and there are penalties for misuse. 

That's it for today.  If you missed, Walking the Skywalk, check it out.

Walking the Skywalk

 Calgary, AB

+15 Network

Today we walked downtown to tackle some of the +15 Skywalk.  Our plan was to walk it like a dungeon in a videogame.  We chose to just hug the left wall as far as we could.  It's less straight forward than it seems it should be because it isn't always straight even though the map shows it is and sometimes you think you are going into a private building but you are still on the skywalk.  We did our best to explore many of the nooks and crannies but we did get lost and also had to exit and re-enter due to a closure.

Here is the map and the yellow highlighted part is what we walked, we think.

We ended up walking just over 5 miles.  During our walk we noticed it was raining as we passed over one of the many bridges.  It kind of reminded me of the Mars scenes in Total Recall.  A whole group of people going about their lives, never having to go outside into the real world.  

We started our walk outside like chumps.  We had to cross the river to get to the skywalk.

There are signs all over downtown showing you the way to the skywalk.

Once inside, you get to experience climate controlled life.  Each of the bridges is private property owned by the connected buildings.

So they all look different and are all heated or cooled by a different system.  Some are too warm and some are too cold, but some are just right.

There are many maps guiding you.  You are the cowboy hat!  Just like Monopoly!

You can see other walkway bridges as you cross your own walkway bridge.  We eventually crossed the bridge shown.

The keeping right strategy paid off in a few ways.  We would have never seen this urban bee keeper because it in a section we knew was a dead end.

There is a lot of art to see along the way too.

A rooftop green space with bee hives and carpenter bee structures.

This was a giant video wall.  We just missed taking a selfie at Niagara Falls.

We even found some Chihuly glass.

There were coffee shops and Tim Horton's

Our wall hugging strategy took us by the bees again.

We even saw a Fast Times at Ridgemont High reference.

And we got to visit The 70s!

Each bridge was very different

There were screens around giving you news and advertising.

We saw a putting green too.

All of these photos were taken before noon.  At noon the walkways filled up with people on lunch.  Calgary has the busiest downtown we have experienced on our trip.  Either it took less of a Covid hit or it bounced back more quickly.  We even got to play "Business Talk Bingo".  We heard "Flow Chart", "Proposal", and people complaining about their boss or coworker.  It reminded us of how much we enjoy not working.

That's it for today.  If you missed, Tiki in Calgary, check it out.  We got tasty drinks and BLT Fried Rice.