It was glorious.
When you are not thinking about the fact that its a 10 hour drive and you just spend the time engulfed in deep conversation, enjoying the quiet, while taking in the beautiful fall scenery, it's like heaven. If ever you get a chance to travel through Jasper National Park in the fall, I highly recommend it. It's absolutely gorgeous. And I'm not much of a fall person. To me, fall is just the precursor to winter. And winter is the Devil. But check out this amazing picture of Mount Robson!
So we got up on day 1 even before the kids were up, which is a sure sign that it is way too early. We had only just told the kids that we were leaving as they were headed to bed the night before, so getting out the door was a gauntlet of "Don't go!" and iron grip hugs. First stop - Tim Hortons! As we were leaving the coffee shop, pipping hot cup of salvation in hand, I reached into my purse to get the keys and realized that I also had the only set of van keys.... The van being the vehicle we left with Partner #1 in case of emergency trips to the hospital. Awesome.
After an unnecessarily long phone conversation riddled with guilt and apologies, we're on our way! After this point it got rather pleasant. It was a beautiful clear fall day and we were driving through the "Wildlife Corridor". I know this because there were signs every couple of kilometers warning me about all of the animals I would see and most likely hit with my car along this stretch of highway. I saw no animals. Still the scenery was spectacular.
Partner #2 had read a book last year called The Mighty Fraser which recounted the history of the Fraser starting from its source in the Rocky Mountains. So as we were driving along she was regaling me with history of the river we were following. As well as educating me in geology (what the kids are studying in school right now), and explaining the mountain formations as we drove through Mount Robson and Jasper park. I can't even make fun of her for being such a nerd because I found it quite interesting too. Then we tried to envision what a similar trip with the kids would look like... It caused me so much anxiety I had to change the subject.
Getting to the hotel was fun. When I had booked our room, the guy on the phone had told me it was a 6 minute walk to the world's biggest mall.... We drove about 15 minutes past the world's biggest mall. So that was nice.
When we checked in, I misunderstood the directions the front desk lady gave me and thought we were in the North tower. The elevators are covered in signs that say they are on the fritz, so we try the button and low and behold they open, but we don't really want to step foot in there. The walls were chipped, the carpets stained, and it just reeked of smoke. But whatever, it was a cheap room, what did I expect? We get up to our floor and have this surreal moment where it feels like we have stepped on to the set of a CSI episode.... I felt like I should be using a UV light on all the stains that were everywhere. How about we don't touch the walls, or the buttons, or the door knobs, maybe just hold your breath while your at it.
Luckily we didn't find out room and concluded we must be in the wrong tower. Please Jesus, let us be in the wrong tower. Proceed back to the elevator. When I pushed the lobby button, the elevator wouldn't respond. At all. So we decided to go down to the 2nd floor and take the stairs the rest of the way (our bags were very heavy, don't judge!). So we head down the stairs, there is no way to the lobby via the stairs!! Are you kidding me?! I am so frustrated at this point. I did not drive 10 hours to put up with this crap.
We finally make it to our actual floor in the right tower, and sigh in relief. Its so much better and not whiff of smoke anywhere. I actually felt kind of bad. We figured the North tower must be the smoking tower and it seemed mean, like the hotel was punishing the smokers with the threat of communicable disease by putting them in that tower. Not that I'm condoning smoking, it's disgusting, but I don't know if biological warfare is the best way to convince people to quit....
We spent the entire next day at the mall. I mean all day. I think we got back to our hotel room at 8:30 p.m. Everyone we wanted to visit while we were in Edmonton, we made them meet us at the mall. It was pretty great. Partner #2's good friend just happened to be taking a course in town, so we got to see her, as well as my little bro who lives there. We didn't exactly have a lot of extra cash to spend, so we didn't buy ourselves anything, we just hung out. Like the much classier, and better looking, version of Mall Rats. We did however purchase all the kids new "town coats". We have winter coats that are only to be worn on the ranch and coats that are only to be worn in town, and since the kids had out grown last years, we decided to take the opportunity to get them some nice ones while taking advantage of the lower taxation Alberta has.
The next day we had a little bit of a slow start, but we got up and met my lovely cousin, who was coincidentally also visiting, for coffee. And then we headed home. That was it. We did make a little detour to pick up a sheep dog closer to the border, but that is hardly worth mentioning. He simply laid down in the back and didn't make a single sound the entire way home... it was like he wasn't even there.
We got home around 10:30- 11:00 that night, and it was such a relief. The drive home always seems longer than the drive there.
I was so grateful for this trip, so grateful to Partner #1 who suggested and facilitated it. Grateful for Partner #2 for joining me. I came home feeling almost refreshed. More like I wasn't going to go all Alfred Hitchcock, anyways. But you know what the best part of this whole trip was? Caesars. I l-o-v-e a good caesar, and without kids around, I was able to have at least 1 with every meal. It was glorious. My little brother, who is a bartender, even took us to his place of work and taught me how to make a proper one. Problem is now that I'm home, I realize that I need the ingredients to make a caesar.... And now I'm broke.
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