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I’ve never been on a road trip. Wait, let me specify. I’ve been on roadtrips with my family, just never my friends. Road trips with your family are very different. They are planned, your parents are in charge, they’re just not the same. I didn’t realize how much better going on a road trip with your friends are. In case you didn’t realize either, here’s my story.

Day one: My three friends and I planned to drive the three hours from Edmonton to Calgary to see the stampede. I’m sure you’re all quite familiar with the Calgary Stampede. It’s one of the biggest rodeos in the world so it’s kind of a big deal. We were going to leave early on Tuesday morning, spend the night and then drive back on Wednesday night. Short and sweet right? Wrong. When we first got to Calgary, we went shopping at Cross Iron Mills and then decided we needed to go to the zoo. I love the Calgary Zoo. The lions were my favorite. We then went back to the hotel to get ready for a night of partying. Partying on a tuesday night? That’s how crazy the stampede is. After a few suggestions, we decided to go to the Cowboys tent. This was a crazy bar. Can you even call it a bar? It was basically a gigantic white tent with a stage and bars and food trunks. It was intense. I’m convinced I was the only one not wearing a cowboy hat or boots. After spending a few hours at this crazy bar, we went to explore downtown at around 10 in the evening. We decided on getting a quick bite at Earls. As we ordered out food, our waiter casually said to us “I’m not sure if you care, but Brody Jenner is here.” We did care. If you didn’t know, Brody Jenner is the half brother of the Kardashians but more importantly, he starred alongside Lauren Conrad on the Hills. We were freaking out! So, when he came into the restaurant from the patio, we went up to him to ask for a picture. What happened next made my heart stop. He said “No, f*** off” and then proceeded to walk away. I was speechless until he turned around laughing saying just kidding. He’s a little joker this one. We got our pictures with him and I was a very happy camper. After Earls, we headed back to our hotel. Our hotel had a rooftop hot tub but it closed at 10. We were very sad about missing this but as we snuck up to the roof to see if we could find a way in, we encountered a security guard. Expecting to get in trouble, we started to run away but instead he asked if we wanted to come up. Yes, that’s right. The security guard was encouraging us to break the rules. For those of you who have never been in a hot tub on the roof of a hotel at midnight with stereos blasting, you are seriously missing out.

Day two: We woke up bright and early and enjoyed one of the best breakfasts at the attatched restaurant. We then headed down to the stampede. That was what we came here for after all. The stampede was so amazing. The rides and midway is pretty basic, it’s very similar to any other fair i.e K-Days. However, my friend, Erinn and I got tickets to the rodeo, which was the highlight of my day. To all those cowboys out there, you are truly amazing wow! I’ve decided my life goal is to marry a cowboy. We watched events like bullriding, barrel racing, and steer-wrestling. I’ve never seen anything like it! It’s so much more amazing to watch it live instead of in a movie or on T.V! Now, originally, we had planned to drive back to Edmonton after the stampede, but Erinn and I were enjoying our little road trip way too much so we decided not to stop the fun just yet. We have a friend who lives in Consort. Don’t be worried if you’ve never heard of it, nobody has ever heard of it. It’s a small town with 668 people. That’s right. Six hundred and sixty-eight people. Anyways, Erinn and I have been meaning to visit our friend, Kevin but we’ve never had the chance until now. So we decided to extend our road trip one more day and go surprise Kevin in Consort. The four hour drive to this town was a little bit scary. Not only were we exhausted from spending the whole day out in the hot sun, but a huge storm also decided to hit. So here we were driving at 11 in the pitch black night with the only light coming from the constant lightning across the sky. But, we made it to Consort and drove to my friend’s house where we surprised him. He was extremely surprised. Best surprise ever? I think so.

Day three: I am writing this post a couple hours after I got home from the road trip. This day was definitely the best day out of the three. We woke up early (is 9am early?) to explore the town. To be honest, not much exploring was done. Consort has, like, four streets. It was so neat to finally see Consort. I have heard about it for so long. it’s like reading your favorite book so many times and then seeing it when it is made into a movie. You notice all the little details that seem so familiar because you’ve imagined them all in your head. This day was so wonderful. I’ve never been a huge fan of small towns. I always thought I needed the shopping and crowds of people to be happy. I was wrong. I got to pet cows and horses and climb hay bales- I know, I’ve never even climbed a tree but now I’ve climbed hay bales! We even went on Quads or Four-wheelers. I don’t know what you call them. It was so amazing to be outside and just see emptiness and grass all around you instead of buildings. It was so peaceful and I don’t know if I’ve ever been happier. I’ve come to the conclusion that I belong on a farm. My new life plan is to get my teaching degree and then teach in Consort so I can live that small town life. It would be so nice to escape the city for a few years.

So that was my roadtrip. It was one of the best couple of days I’ve had in a long time. It’s definitely something I’ll remember and hold dear in my memories. Best summer ever? Yes.

#ROADTRIP2014 = success