Day 17

This morning we got up for breakfast with no real urgency but if we had known that breakfast was going to take over an hour for a few fried and poached eggs we would have got down earlier.

This trip has so far not given us any reason to believe that each day something has to go wrong or someone has to piss us off, they say this a “trip of a lifetime” and we can assure you it will only happen once in our lifetime. Anyway enough of the moaning, we left just before lunchtime for Edmonton and had already decided that we were not going to stay in this City based on previous experiences, so with little time to explore we tapped in the very well know shopping Mall which has everything in it including Ice Rink, Sea Lions, Themed Hotel and just about everything imaginable oh yes and a few thousand shops. Sandy was in her element but we kept a close eye on her and kept her on a shot reign. After we looked around we needed feeding so we looked for a local “Earls” those of you that have been following this site daily will know that it has become a favourite of ours and we introduce Ken & Sandy to the delights of their food and ambiance. Thankfully they liked the food and agreed that it could, and should be a food choice in the future days for lunch and maybe dinner.

Ok we really did not want to spend too much time in the City so we headed for Jasper knowing we were not going to make it today but would settle for a town en-route, this in itself in the past has seemed like a easy task but as usual with this Country has proved not to be the case, well today thankfully Ken & Sandy experienced what we have had to put up with for the last 2 weeks.

Towns with no facilities or very little in the way of hotels or accommodation and all about 100km apart from each other, so with an extra 200km added to the trip we finally settled for a town called Edson about 2 hours East of Jasper, as it turned out, a good choice because they had a fair in town, I mean a traditional old school fair with old style rides and stalls, Ken had a shot at pitching a ball to knock 3 bricks down, but just failed. It was nice, it felt like a really small time village affair, really refreshing by todays standards.

We stayed in a Best Western that had a great Irish Bar attached and a really lovely lady “Dey” served us and helped us on our choice of hotel in the Jasper area, and the food was really great as well, Sandy actually stated that it was the best she had had in a while. So tomorrow we don’t have a long trip to where we are staying which is in Jasper national Park and we will be there for at least 2 days exploring the surrounding areas which includes a glacier.

The only concern we have is that there has been a lot of forest fires in BC and the skies are full of the smoke form these fires and the visibility has reduced drastically, not what you want with crystal clear lakes and beautiful & stunning views that we have just a few hours away, we are desperate for a clear few days just so we can get some great photos and videos of some of the best looking landscapes we are likely to see, BUT with our luck so far we expect rain , snow or even more fires. We are hoping Ken & Sandy can bring us some good luck, only time will tell.