Calgary

When: May 2001, August 2002, November 2002, November 2004, July 2005. about a week each time.
For a visitor, Calgary has great night-life (or maybe my friends just knew the right places to go). Anyway, they have the stampede every summer, so they must know what they're doing. It's also a great base from which you can visit the nearby mountains (a couple hours away, spectacular drive), and the dry land to the east, where there's a dinosaur museum (once upon a time dinosaurs roamed the area and southern alberta was full of palm trees).