Edmonton - I'm Lazy

Leslie Wednesday, September 17 - Sunday, September 21, 2008

Wednesday

Okay, I’ve been lazy in not keep the blog up to date. It’s been great to relax and do little here in Edmonton. We’re staying at Glowing Embers RV Park. The sites are very wide, and nicely separated by trees. The weather has been delightful and the leaves are changing on the fall trees. Wednesday we both went to the West Edmonton Mall. Robert has had an outer ear infection for a week or so. I had announced that if he hadn’t gotten over it by the time we reached Edmonton, he’d have to seek a doctor. He discovered that there is a Medical Clinic at the mall. Ah ha, this should work well. He’ll wait at the clinic (we’re thinking a typical US Doc in a Box) while I go shopping. This is not to be. The Med Clinic at the Mall specializes in skin care (aka Botox, etc.) I don’t think they do any “regular” medical care. When we attempted to check-in, the receptionist didn’t know what an ear infection was! After some conversation he suggested another med clinic a few blocks away. We stopped there to discover that it was closed because the doctor was on vacation. (I doubt if it would have been helpful anyway because it specialized in weight loss.) Next we were referred to a Doc in a Box Clinic at the Canadian version of a low-end Walmart knock-off (Canada Superstore). We arrived there at 5:30 pm and were told there was a two hour wait. Robert would have to check in every 25 minutes to hold a place in line. The cost for the visit was $40. No problem. Unfortunately it was nearly 9:00 pm when Robert was finally seen by the doctor. (I sat in the truck for hours listening to CNN on the satellite radio.) He was given a prescription as expected. We elected to have the RX filled at the in-store pharmacy. The RX cost $36 for a small bottle of ear drops. That surprised us as I expected the RX to be less considering the low cost of the doctor consultation. Eventually at nearly 10:00 pm we escaped the Canada Superstore and found an excellent restaurant for dinner.

Dinner at the Moxie Grill, corner of 170th St and RT 16A, was excellent. We highly recommend it. The Moxie Grill is a high-end fern bar with excellent entries. Robert ordered ribs which I highly recommend. (I was treated to one rib.)

Thursday

I made my way solo to the Edmonton West Mall. Yes, it is huge. In fact, even though I am known as being able to handle any shopping center - this was a bit much. I didn’t buy a single thing. The mall was overwhelming. It wasn’t too crowded – just huge. One thing I noticed was that there aren’t the typical anchor stores. There is only a Sears, a Hudson Bay (similar to Macy’s) and a Zabors (lower-end department store). That means that it is very easy to get lost because you don’t have the large anchors to orient yourself. There really is an ice skating rink, an amusement park, a Sea Otter Rock, a water park with a 3 story water slide), etc. On Sunday we’re going to the mall to take pictures of the attractions for the blog.



Friday

Today was Robert’s birthday. We cleaned the inside of the truck – a big accomplishment. It hadn’t been cleaned since we left Colorado last spring and we were embarrassed to have any visitors ride along. Our lousy vacuum takes hours to clean a small space. We’ve determine that we’ll get a better vacuum before the next trip out.

We had planned to have dinner out in celebration of Robert’s birthday. We returned to Moxie Grill mostly because I wanted to order the excellent ribs Robert had a few days ago. They were still excellent, although the sauce was different. Clearly they make their own sauce. I was able to bring home enough ribs for both of us for Saturday lunch.

Saturday

We spent the day cleaning the outside of both the truck and the Rv. They were both incredibly filthy. We spent over 4 ½ hours cleaning – but the results are great. At Walmart I had bought some Armor Auto Cleaning and Waxing stuff that we mixed with water. It worked extremely well. We didn’t have to scrub the embedded bugs as much off the front end cap. We did apply a lot of elbow grease and the result was something to be proud of. We’ve joked that we should get an award for Exterminator of the Bugs of Canada and Alaska – it is hard it imagine how many bugs we had creamed on the end cap! The rig looks excellent with the wax coating. We’ll have to apply several more coats to keep it in such good shape.



I even climbed on the roof to clean the solar panel.

Sunday

Wow, fall is arriving soon. We spent most of the day watching the leaves changing before our eyes. The winds are increasing. The golden leaves that we’ve been enjoying on the trees are falling very quickly. Late this afternoon we returned to the West Edmonton Mall for pictures. Here’s a sample of the extra activities you can engage in at the West Edmonton Mall.

Ice skating.



Waterpark





Amusement park with a great roller coaster



Bungee Jumping:



Seal Lion show



Segway track (10 minutes of $10.00/ 90 minutes for $60 to stroll through the mall before opening)





There is an Oriental Market, the size of a surburban Safeway. Here’s a picture of the ducks and chickens awaiting your purchase. We were also intrigued by the Dim Sum market – something we haven’t enjoyed in many years.