Dos Gringos Locos

Oh dear God…where do I start! lol Last night at 2 a.m. Scott and I were awoken to a distraught woman on the roof of the building opposite our room (it’s actually part of the same building we were in but not as high) who was screaming and crying saying to call 9-1-1 that she was bleeding and needed help. It was almost blood curdling….that was until we peered out the window and saw how drugged out she was. She was clearly on crack or meth or some other mind-altering chemical substance that causes extreme paranoia. She was pacing back and forth on the edge of the roof (it was only about one story up) and ringing her hands, screaming for someone to please help her. I called the front desk right away and they had already heard and the cops were on the way. If this was any indication of how long it takes emergency personnel to arrive in Edmonton I don’t ever wanna have an emergency…it was easily 15 or more minutes wait. People tried to talk her down and tried to calm her but she was crazy. She picked up a piece of two-by-four at one point and was swinging it around. Finally police arrived and they somehow got her down safely. Interesting night to say the least, lol.

So we got up at 6 a.m., after only having 4 hours sleep since the incident above. We arrived at the airport by 7:20 and actually had to wait to check in….I’ve never been this early! lol Luckily it was only about 15 minutes or so and then we were off to security. Well, guess what?! There was a pocket knife in my carry-on! It was one of those small Northland Utilities pocket knives they give away and somehow (even after I searched that bag a million times) it showed up on the x-ray and my bags were searched! It was so embarrassing ’cause when they asked if I had anything sharp in my bag, like a knife, I was like no. Ohmygod…luckily they weren’t super crazy and they just opened it all up and did the search, finding it, and asked if I wanted it mailed to me…God no. They said not to worry because it happens all the time and with that we were finally cleared and in the departures area. Phew!

Anyways, I started to develop a sore throat last night so the first stop was at the store to buy some lozenges and now we’re at Montana’s having some brekky, killing time. I hope the events of this morning are no indication of how the rest of the trip is going to go, lol. Next post…Mexico!!!

Leanne

So today started off with a trip to the Southgate Mall, which was fairly close to our hotel. I went into the Lenscrafters there to look at some frames and ended up getting booked in for an appointment then buying a new pair of glasses. They’re quite nice if I might say so myself… Oakleys and semi-rimless. Plus I was in dire need of an eye exam, so being able to see again is an added bonus!

Scott's New Specs

We grabbed a quick lunch at the food court at Southgate, then headed over the very-over-the-top West Edmonton Mall. The WEM is one of those places you just have to go to once just to say you’ve been. It’s far too big to be practical as a shopping centre, but it has an interesting theme park vibe to it. The first sight we saw when walking in from the parking lot was a giant pirate ship, surrounded by water (complete with submarines you can take a ride in).

WEM Pirate Ship

If that weren’t enough, there’s also an aquarium with penguins, dolphins (or at least there used to be dolphins, we didn’t see any there to prove their existence) and sea lions. We arrived in time to catch the end of a sea lion show.

A young audience member gets kissed by a sea lion.

We actually didn’t get to see all the attractions of the mall (our feet were tired from all the walking), but another cool attraction we did see was the skating rink. There were a group of young figure skaters practicing when we where there.

The skating rink at WEM

After all that excitement, we went out to Jungle Jim’s restaurant for dinner. It’s a tropical-themed restaurant, which pretty much suited us… plus it’s one of Leanne’s favourites. Unfortunately our eyes were “bigger than our stomachs” as her mother would say and we ended up ordering WAYYY too much food, most of which we ate – therefore we’re both suffering from upset stomachs at present.

Leanne with our two adult smoothies at Jungle Jim's. Hers was a Chocolate Monkey (on the right), mine was a Blue Caribbean. Hers was better, but mine was still pretty good.

As you can see, we ordered everything on the menu (including the kitchen sink)!

After that we somehow found the energy for a trip to Wal-Mart for some last minute supplies before heading back to the hotel.

It’s currently 9:41pm and we’ll likely be hitting the hay soon – we ordered a wake up call for 6am tomorrow to leave us plenty of time to get our butts in gear and get to the airport! I wonder if either of us will get any sleep though…

Scott

I’ve been up since 6:30 a.m. or so…just couldn’t sleep in, I’m so excited! We are soooo close now. The bed is super comfy, which usually lends itself well to sleeping in all day, but I am wide awake so I decided to upload a couple of the photos we took of our drive down to Edmonton yesterday (saves time later). Of course as soon as I opened up the laptop Scott was awake…I swear he can hear electronic devices from a mile away! lol He wanted to upload the photos and do some tweaking to them so they fit on here properly and whatnot…as if I couldn’t do it, lol. Anyways, after waiting on Mr. Perfect to do his thing forever I finally get the laptop back. The following photos are nothing special, just a few road signs showing us leaving the Territories, entering Alberta, and the Edmonton skyline this morning from our balcony…I promise Mexico will be much more exciting!

Leanne

It was a LONG drive today but we couldn’t have asked for better weather. Clear roads, sunny skies (though we did hit a few patches of drizzel for a few minutes at a time), and we made good time. Even managed to stop in Whitecourt for Mary Brown’s Fried Chicken, which I haven’t had since I was in Newfoundland! Yumm-o! It was Scott’s first experience with it and he seemed to enjoy it, but he doesn’t love it as much as I do (must be a Newfie thing! lol). By the time we hit the city limits it was dark and we had to totally rely on the GPS to figure out which exits to take to get us where we needed to go. Scott did the city driving, thankfully…’cause if it was me we’d still be out there on the off-ramps doing circles! lol Took one wrong turn (ok, so the GPS isn’t perfect), but we managed to correct ourselves quickly and arrived at the Ramada Inn & Water Park in one piece. Check in was a breeze and we were in our room within minutes. Up early tomorrow for Scott’s appointment and then West Edmonton Mall! Only two more sleeps…

Leanne