From Savannah to the July Fourth Weekend

My anticipated 3 day trip during the week of 22 June turned out to be an a quick overnight trip to Vegas on 24-25 June. Winds were the lightest they've ever been and for the first time we made the westbound trip in just under 5 hours. There's always a trade off, and the light winds also made the trip home a little longer than the normal 4 hours. Historically, westbound flight are always longer than eastbound flight due to the Jet stream which moves air west to east at velocities of 50-170 mph at the flight altitudes of 30-45 thousand feet. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jet_stream
Following the 2 day trip to Vegas, I had to return to Savannah on the 27th to pick up the passengers I dropped off there on the 20th.
I got home early on the 27th and my daughters and their husbands and children took my wife Ronnie and I out for dinner at the to celebrate our 40th wedding anniversary(actually June 28th). A great meal and a good time was had by all at the Big Fish Bistro in Princeton Marketfair.
I managed to get a day at the beach before leaving on an unexpected trip to Phoenix, AZ June 30-July 1. This is the approach to Scottsdale Airport-The Corporate airport for Phoenix. Temps in Phoenix during my 2 days there hit 108 and 104. Oh!, but it was dry heat?
This is the pool at the hotel, mid-day. Notice how many people are
cooling off? At the time I took this, the temp was 106 and the pool water is heated.

The sunset shot is at 41000 feet over Chicago. It's night on the ground but 8 miles up we still have a little sun.

And, what would my blog be without a cloud shot. This one is a nice undercast, down in the low teens, tells me there nice stable air around.

Arrived home at 11PM and left for Calgary at 9AM the following morning.

This is the Calgary Tower at 9th and Center.I stayed in the Marriott across the street.

I mentioned the theme for the week was "the wild west". Calgary is the wild west of Canada, just above the state of Montana.

It is a very clean, and very friendly Canadian City with a population of over a million. The city was celebrating the Calgary Stampede.You can click the title link above to check it out.I was impressed with the cleanliness of such a big city and happy I didn't hear any French. Only the money and prices(high) reminded me I wasn't in the US. They have a great daylight period. During my stay the sun rose at about 530am and set about 10PM. I don't know what their winter is like but they have a great summer. Temps were65-75 during the day, and 45-55 at night. Everything was western during the stay. Better than 50% of the populace dresses in cowboy/girl boots and hats for the 10 days of the event. The following pictures are random shots of the Stampede Parade and the people.

Yes, there are still Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and they have a great bagpipe band.

Street cleaners madeup to look western followed almost each of the horse groups. The parade lasted 4 hours and the streets were cleaned curb to curb at least every hour.

Western hats were encouraged and hat pins with "keep the legend alive" were distributed throughout the parade route by various groups.

The store pictured here is one of Calgary's oldest western stores and it was doing a great business.

I spent my 4th of July at a movie(Public Enemies) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1152836/ walking around the Turkish celebration.

Getting ready to leave Calgary, this strange DC-3 was taxiing out for takeoff. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1152836/