Not a birthday trip! Part three

Calgary is beautiful. It always has been and always will be (even if they were a little heavy handed with the Brutalist architecture at times). It is a city split four ways by two rivers and each of the quadrants is different. The people are split by the rivers and quadrants too; I know people from the NW who will not venture into the NE or SE and people from the SE who won't go in to the SW. Strange, but these physical dividers become mental dividers as well, until we're willing to explore past them.

I spent the day exploring my old stomping grounds. I wandered around Edworthy Park and was amazed/shocked/saddened by how much damage the flood in 2013 had done. Truly amazing and shocking what nature can do to itself. Entirely new land bars were created in the river, banks were washed out and paths were rerouted. It honestly blew my mind.

Downtown changed too. We drove around to a lot of the spots that had been flooded out and had no business being under as much water as they were. I don't like to see my city suffering like that.

We did go up to Scotsman's Hill, however. This was not affected by the floods but the Stampede Grounds it overlooks were.

After spending some time in Ramsay, we ventured in to the East Village.
Growing up, the East Village was a place to avoid at all costs. It wasn't safe, period.
Many mayors had tried to clean it up and it was in progress when I moved away. To come back to it being nearly done was phenomenal. It is walkable, clean, safe and very beautiful. A massive change from the shells of buildings and people and the syringes on the ground.

Two beautiful rivers, the Bow and Elbow.

The sun was getting low and a beautiful moon was rising. Ernie was willing to stay there all night and snap pictures of the moon rise but we moved on instead.

My city's icons.

Next up: 20 years later.....