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 Photos courtesy of Maxine McBryan |
Well, it was a quick trip. My Dad wanted to go to Alberta to visit his cousin, Jack. Having never seen Edmonton, I jumped at the chance.
At least I thought I was going to see Edmonton.
It seemed that Dad's other cousin, Sara, had other ideas. She wanted me to see the mountains because she thought I hadn't seen them before.
It was a nice gesture. Actually, I had seen the mountains when I was in the foothills south of Lethbridge in '78, and I've seen the coastal mountains twice, but what the heck.
Jack had a small RV which he thought would be more comfortable for us. There were two couples plus Dad and myself. It was okay as far as RVs go, but I like restaurants and their washrooms.
We got as far as Canmore the first night, and found a small house after looking at a couple of motels that didn't meet Sara's standards. It had three bedrooms. They expected me to sleep on the coach. When I voiced my disapproval at that idea, the owner of the house said that Dad could sleep at their house across the street. I love Albertans.
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Next morning I decided to go for a little walk before we took off again. Who knows... maybe I'd find Mike of Canmore. Well, I didn't find him, but I found the Bow River and the mountain scene behind them. It was well worth the short walk.
We set out for Banff and it was drizzling rain. I didn't realize it then, but I was coming down with the flu. Imagine walking around in the drizzling rain in cool autumn weather of the mountain with the flu. Not good.
When we got to Banff, we went off to shop a little. We weren't to be too long because we had to keep moving. Sara and I kind of lost track of time and were a little longer than we were suppose to be. When we got back we were scolded for being too long, but gee, we were only gone thirty or forty minutes.
I managed to find a Banff sweater, and got my picture taken with this wonderful, huge, stuffed teddy bear.
On we went to Lake Louse. However, the ten minutes we were there were hardly enough. I took in the beautiful lake and surrounding mountains, but I think I was just as much in awe of that huge hotel. I wanted to step inside and take a look at how the more prosperous lived, but no, we had to get going. Oh yeah, I did get a picture of Lake Louise before rushing off.
We were going to try and make it to Jasper that night, but the weather was terrible. We could barely make out the mountains. I don't recall seeing a single animal... no bears, no elks, no deer, no long horn sheep, no mountain goats, not even a squirrel. There are squirrels in the Rockies, aren't there?
It was just as well we went home, because I wasn't feeling too good. The next day, Jack was taking Dad to the Reynolds Museum in Wetaskiwin. I love museums. They weren't leaving me home, fever or not.
The displays in this museum are set up by decades. There in the 1950s display were my childhood toys. You know how that makes you feel seeing something you played with as a child is in a museum? Old.
That afternoon we were invited to Sara's place for supper. She lived in Edmonton. I begged her to take me to the Edmonton Mall, and she did... for half an hour. I did manage to see the aquarium and the dolphins perform. We made a quick walk in and out. I grabbed a pamphlet of the mall so I could see what I didn't see. I needed two weeks.
The last day we went to a restaurant for lunch before heading out to the Leduc #1 Oil Field. Being a local history buff from the area where the first oil discovery in Canada -- Oil Springs, Ontario -- I naturally was looking forward to this. I wanted to talk to the curator and exchange information; however, as fate would have it (and par to the course for this trip) the museum was closed. We could still look at some of the artifacts outside though. No, I didn't take any pictures.
The morning we were leaving came too soon. We were up at 5 a.m. to catch an 8 a.m. flight to Toronto. When we checked in, I asked the clerk if we could have a wheelchair waiting for us in Toronto because our connection time was short, and Dad had a heart condition.
We boarded the plane and sat there for twenty minutes past take off time while the wings were being de-iced. I can understand the need to de-ice wings, but the twenty minutes cut into our already short connection time. I wasn't too worried though; there would be a wheelchair waiting when we landed, right?
Wrong. It wasn't there. We waited for a few minutes and were starting out to get to the next boarding area, when a porter came along. He said he would get a wheelchair for us. We just barely made the flight.
It wasn't until we landed that we found out our luggage didn't make the connection. It came in on the next flight and was brought to our house. Thus ending our quick trip to Alberta.
Someday I'm going back. I'm going shop a little longer in Banff, go into the huge hotel, visit the Edmonton Mall for more than half an hour and see the #1 Oil Field in Leduc when it's open. Heck maybe I'll even see Edmonton.
And I think I'll check the weather to make sure it isn't raining.