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Hi everyone. Sorry for the delay in sending this latest update - as you can imagine we are now at the end of our trip and are packing stuff in - meaning no time for uploading photos and blogging. After the trip to the wilderness on Tuesday we headed for an altogether wilder place on Wednesday - the West Edmonton Mall. The 5th largest mall in the world. Edmonton is a 2hr drive away - a mere drive to the corner shop in Canadian terms. We parked the car and handed our souls to the Devil - well to the evil Shopping Spirit anyway. Before we actually started shopping we made our battle plans - two teams of two - one in attack mode (Clara and Shell), one in defence (Joe and John). We familiarised ourselves with the terrain - studied all possible routes - and identified key offensive positions (points of interest - points of excessive expense !!). And then back to the car to kit ourselves out, synchronise our watches and agree on a rendezvous ETA. I won't bore you with a shop by shop account (I'm sure Clara and Shell's list would be longer) but I will list the other attractions on offer - a full scale water park with beach - multiple waterslides - hot tubs - wave machine (unfortunately we got to this too late - arrived at 5pm and the only ticket was a day pass - bah humbug - i wasn't going to pay a full day rate for a few hours - the kids were surprisingly understanding and off shopping we went again). Back to the list of attractions - Pirate Ship (full scale) - Mini-Golf (Full Scale) - Submarines (not working at the time but real underwater thingies) - Sea Lion show (small pool - big sea lion - not nice really) - Ice Rink (apparently the Edmonton Oilers train here occasionally) - Western Shoot Out (Joe and I tracked this down thinking it would be air pistols or something - we got there, after a walk down several bare corridors, to be confronted by a full-on shooting range - choose your weapon of choice - Glock, Smith & Wesson, Winchester - the real McCoy - buy your bullets and BAM BAM BAM !! - Joe and I didn't have a go - I think we were too shocked watching the sheer force of these guns go off). And then finally Galaxyland - a huge amusement park with some massive rides - 2 rollercoasters (one fairly tame and one butt clenching loop the loop type ride) and all sorts of other scary stuff. We visited the food court for lunch and decided to skip the restaurants when we finally finished (around 8pm) and thought that we better head back to Red Deer (2 hrs away - hope we didn't keep David and Bet up too late that night).
After our exhaustive day on Wednesday we decided to adjust our plans on Thursday. We had planned to drive to Drumheller, go the Tyrell (!!)..Dinosaur Museum and then get to Daniels in Calgary for a BBQ at 5pm. Well - we got off to a very slow start - knowing we had to pack (for good this time) and waking up to glorious heat we quickly realised our day with the Dinosaurs would have to wait until next time (we've got to come back!!) - the Red Deer Water Park had tickets with our names on them !! It didn't take much to convince the kids and by midday we were sliding down water chutes and jumping waves in the wave pool. Packing the car for almost the last time we headed off to Calgary (everywhere seems about 2hrs away !!). Daniel (my cousin - David and Bet's son) , Shona, Foster, Morley (the dog) and Anakin (the cat) were waiting for us along with Brian the housesitter (they are off on holiday themselves on Friday, coincidentally almost retracing our steps back over to Vancouver Island - destination Tofino). Daniel prepared Buffalo Burgers, Corn on the Cob, Salmon for us all to tuck into whilst the kids entertained Foster and the rest of us generally chatted away. A lovely evening and if Daniel and Shona read this we would like to say thanks for your hospitality and sorry for the early and somewhat abrupt exit along with David, Bet (and Morley) - probably best bearing in mind how distraught Foster was that his playmates were going !! Have a great holiday !!!
And so to our final hotel - the Quality Inn Calgary Airport. This was a quick internet booking on Thursday morning and all I have to say is - you get what you pay for !!. We didn't pay much and - yep - we didn't get much. I should have made sure that our last night was at least somewhere half decent - there was a moment when we were sitting in the room thinking is it too late (9pm) to go look for another hotel. But we got over the initial shock and gradually got off to bed. It was clean at least. But it was small, smelly (a no-smoking room that reeked of smoke) and had dodgy electrics. The free wireless was so weak I gave up. Hey but free breakfast was included wasn't it ??? - it was - we went down in the morning to three tables (covered with cling film!!) in reception with a little table at the side with precisely 4 bagels on it, 2 bowls, 2 cups and some manky looking cereals - even if it was free we weren't going to sit there. Luckily David had mentioned Denny's just across the road. We couldn't get there quick enough. This place was fantastic and we all tucked into huge breakfasts (pancakes, french toast, bacon, eggs, sausages, muffins, fruit - the works !!) with great coffee and juices. This personally made me quickly forget about the Quality Inn.
We are now at Calgary airport. We dropped the car off no trouble and waited for the check-in gate to open. We are now through in the departure lounge with a few hours to go to our flight. I'll hand ove to Michelle now to give a final few words on the last few days. Thanks for reading. See you all soon.
Shell - What an adventure we have had and we hope you have enjoyed it along with us. The photo's and videos really can't convey the beauty and magnificence of the cities, island and mountains we have visited. Apart from our trip to West Edmonton Mall our time at Betty and David's was very relaxing, just what we needed after our full on, non stop two weeks of travelling. We thoroughly enjoyed our trip to Seven Mile Flats but if you ever visit all I can say is don't look down on the left hand side!!! I think we all felt very emotional when we left Dan and Shona's last night, and as John already said Foster was the most emotional of all. We will definitely be saving to come back again, it is the second time I have been to the Rocky Mountains and the second time I didn't make it to the Icefields, and I know John really wants to go to Drumheller, so look out Plumtrees, in the words of Arnie - We Will Be Back........... But in the meantime, we will be back home in a few short (well long) hours and back to reality, but we are looking forward to seeing everyone and boring everyone silly with the slideshow - what do you mean you're busy on that day? LOL, bye for now XXXXXX
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