July 12

 Today we head to Calgary after E is done working. We packed up and checked out of the Sandman. I spent most of the day in a place called Cafe on 54. E joined me and grabbed himself a Reuban when he was done which he seem to like.

I worked on the journal and drew a picture of Edmonton before we landed. 

Scan and add photo of art work.

We had to wait for the network guy while he returned his car so we hung out at a nearby gas station though it was a bit more than that with a car wash and a convenience store. It was a long wait so I grabbed some junk food. I lost one of the things I bought but the 7 day croissant was pretty good.

The network guy wanted to stop at a beach called Sylvan Beach on the way to Calgary. It was interesting, one of those lakes where you can walk out a long way before it starts to get above your knees. There was a camping area, a playground, and a small marina.

   

I walked along the kelp-strewn beach looking for a stone or two, what I found were waterlogged wood chips.

We arrived in Calgary quite late but we were all hungry so we stopped at Taj Mahal Restaurant for dinner. E got Butter Chicken and the Network guy got some kind of vegetarian dish, I only got a Lassi so I had a choice while they each ate their own thing. The network guy raised a bit of a stink cause E offered to pay the whole bill but he insisted it be split.

We dropped him at his hotel and headed to the Holiday Express. While it wasn't nearly as impressive as the Sandman it was decent with a separate bedroom and space for a meeting if required. It did have a nice fireplace and a counter for the kitchenette so we both had work space.

Needless to say we went to sleep pretty quick. It was a big travel day and we had another one coming up in another day & a half.

July 11

 We had the hotel room for two nights so I decided to spend my second day in Alberta exploring South Common Mall which covers 5 acres or more, all outside entrances, no covered walkways here.

He dropped me off in front of Michaels so I would have a starting place I wouldn't forget. 

After getting embroidery needles, pencil crayons & a drawing book I headed out to my next goal. I really needed my hair trimmed so I looked around until I found a barber shop. I thought I might get a good deal but it ended up costing me the same as it would if I'd gone to a salon. Even so I felt tons better once my hair wasn't such a mess. The place was called Tommy Gun's Original Barbershop. I liked the woman who did my hair a lot, she was patient but talkative. Highly recommend this place!

Alberta has been under a smoke haze from various wildfires so instead of a warm day it was kinda cool so I went looking for a place I could get a cheap sweater. I found an Old Navy. It was difficult to leave that store with just the sweater, they had so many pretty dresses ...

I was hungry and wanted to sit and write for a bit so I went looking for a Tim Hortons. After about half an hour of rest I headed back to the Michaels only to get side-tracked into a Lindt store. I had some luck and found a small package of their chocolate which I bought.

I was headed back to Michaels when I remembered the movie theatre that is there. I decided I was going to treat myself to a movie before heading back to the hotel.

I watched a movie called Astroid City. It was a genre that I wasn't familiar with but I did enjoy it along with my popcorn and a couple of chocolates.

Once it was over I decided to head back to the hotel so I called a cab, it was only $13 from the theatre to the hotel which seems very reasonable to me.

Sadly when I got back to the hotel I could not remember our room number and had a bit of a panic attack even went as far as talking to the cleaning staff before going to the front desk to ask. After I dropped off my stuff I decided to look into the on-site restaurants.

Both Chop and Denny's are on site so we could go high-end (Chop) or comfort food (Denny's). We decided on Denny's.

After a good meal and our other routines, we headed to bed. I slept amazingly considering how much walking I did today.

July 9th & 10th

 I was on my way to see GD#3 in Aurora with my son when he made me an offer I couldn't refuse.

Everlovin' was planning on coming down to get me that night after work. I was a little worried because it meant he would be very tired after working all day and then driving the 2 hrs to get me and the 2 hrs back cause we needed to be at the airport at 9:30 or so. My son said that Aurora was pretty close to where Everlovin' lives near the border of Toronto and Markham so he could drop me off and save Everlovin from having to make the trip. It also meant I could worry less about his heart and the fatigue he would be feeling with the time change between Ontario and Alberta.

So instead of spending the night traveling
dinner was provided by my MIL and I got to sit out under the gazebo and see all the pretty flowers my BIL has grown.

I need to say before I go any further that I had never been on a jet before, I'd ridden in a fixed wing so it wasn't totally strange. I was beyond excited and nervous, first to be going into a real airport, and second for riding in a jet (Airbus320).

So much to tell, all exciting to me but maybe not so much you. E showed me how to measure my bags to make sure they were the right size, and we checked the big suitcase. When our flight was called they asked people to put their carry-ons into stowage but we didn't.

We then had to go through the metal detector. I had to hand over both my bags and go through them, thankfully I didn't have any problems though E had to go through them a couple of times because of his tools.

On the other side, they opened our bags searching for Contraband, luckily the only thing I had was a pair of scissors which I lost because they were a cm too long, I'm just glad I had my backup pair.

We sat and waited what felt like hours before our flight was called. We waited in the waiting area. Our tickets were standby tickets so they had to assign us our seats before takeoff

E and I were in the same row on the plane. He got a window seat so he switched with me so I had the window and he was on the aisle; it was my first time after all and he was being nice. Love that man of mine!

This was just before we started to taxi to lift off. Because we were at the tail end of the plane the wing kinda got in the way of the view a little.

Once in the air, I watched out my window for a while til we got above the clouds. I tried to get photos and if any turned out I will share them on Facebook.

During the rest of the 4-hour trip, I read and watched our fellow passengers. I saw a family group standing around a row of seats I'm assuming the seated ones were elders but I couldn't see their faces.

My seatmates were a couple of age with me so we mainly ignored each other. There was the proverbial kid in front of us that kept pushing back on the seat and shaking the table my tablet was on.

In front of me was a screen on which I could keep track of how close we were to our destination, at the one-hour out mark I put my stuff away and got a few winks.

 

After touchdown, it was a simple process although waiting for our big bag on the carousel worried me a bit. We went and got our car from the rental place. That was fun (not) we went to the window we thought we were supposed to go sent to another one and then were looked after by this nice lady who was just beginning a second shift.

We found the car and headed out to the hotel. After getting our room we went out to get dinner. For the first time in years, I had dinner at the Olive Garden. Delicious as always!

Our hotel room was literally exactly what I would like my tiny house to be with a kitchenette, laundry, and a breakfast nook so we had space for both of us to have a desk. It was absolutely perfect!

After relaxing and doing our games we went to sleep. I slept so well that night!