Calgary

Did a nice walk this am along the Bow River in Banff with Mom towards Cave and Basin national Monument, Canada's first. The place was closed but we could smell the sulfur from the springs that created the monument and we saw our first "bear" warning signs. So didn't do much trail over there, hoping to avoid a run in with a sow and her cubs that the sign said had been hunting Caribou babies in the area.
We got out of Banff about 9:15 and arrived at Calgary airport by 10:45, leaving Mom plenty of time (we hope!). Then we headed into the city, letting trusty Sally guide us to our first stop, Glenbow Museum. Calgary streets are a mess. First off, they are a mish mash of one way streets and there is major construction and Center street does not go all the way through but is interrupted by a mall, so getting to where we were going was an endeavor.
After spending an arm and a leg to park on the street (All parking is paid in Calgary by those little machines) and only being able to park for two hours, we headed to the museum. The museum is very nicley done. The exhibits were great but the museum itself, located inside what seemed to be an abandoned convention center or meeting center, was very modern and well-kept. The exhibit space was spacious. the only problem I had was trying to figure out where each exhibit began; we constantly found ourselves popping into and out of exhibits in the middle of them which made it difficult to follow their chronology.
The exhibits were diverse: we saw an Asian art exhibit focused on Buddhism and Hinduism and Asha and i tried to figure out the difference between the Chinese Buddha and the Indian Buddha (which we never definitively did); there was an oil drilling exhibit about the rise of oil in Alberta which is (or was) the largest oil bearing province in Canada; a First People's exhibit which was excellent on the art, history and culture of the Native people's in the area; and, finally, there were paintings that depicted the areas that the train traveled through from Banff west to Vancouver. This exhibit was fascinating to see what Banff looked like at the turn of the century since we had just been there.
We had to go back and move the car in order to get lunch. we'd read all these good reviews about an Indian place called nawab. One review said you must have lunch reservations but we decided to give it a shot anyway. we found the place, parked and got there about 1:10. It was empty but they said we could get our food (so either the review was wrong or everyone clearsout by 1pm. The place closes at 1:30). The food was good if somewhat limited for a buffet: we had butter chicken, cabbage subzi, naan, beef kofta (which just tasted like beef meatballs), chole, salad, pappadums. All the food seemed fresh (no frozen peas and carrots), flavorful and not high in fat. The place is very upscale and fancy and not cheap (whatever happened to the cheap indian places?).
We decided to give up our downtown excursion after all this difficulty with parking and driving around and headed to the hotel where it looks like the "subway" comes almost to the door so if we had come here first we could have saved ourselves considerable hassle. Live and learn.