Camping in Jasper

This Labour Day weekend we drove up to Jasper to camp with Matthew and Kim and Brad and Toni. The drive, as always is spectacular. Coming up from prairie to mountains is good and to Daorcey who didn't spend his life an hour from the mountains, the drive is always fun.

We bought a power cord for the iPod because sitting in the cold drains the battery and makes the drive back really boring. So we ended up listening to podcasts from locked-out CBCers. Our two favourites are the Ottawa podcast and Shelagh Rogers, the host of Sounds Like Canada. The Ottawa feed is produced by the morning and lunch hour folks so they have a smattering of news and weather or sports or traffic as they can only afford the one. Then there's lockout news and then some music from a local artist or some other CBC personality. A great one had the resident gardener which was actually interesting and then one of the Arrogant Worms who sang an ode to the gardener. Both of us depend on Newsworld for our news so the lack of coverage of Katrina and other news events is frustrating. Hopefully our CBC comes back.

The drive itself had been beautiful and sunny. When we got to the site it started raining and didn't stop until Monday when we left. We spend the day playing cards and eating and went to bed early which is unusual. Usually, there's a fire and we sit around eating and talking but the cold and lack of fire made us want to head to bed early.

The next morning we woke up at 9, which is late. We had breakfast and set off for Edith Cavell. There's a hike to some meadow and apparently is fantastic. We got out of the car, 4 of us in the back seat, and it's snowing. We bundle up, Toni puts on a plastic bag on her head and up the mountain we go. Matthew and Kim brought their dogs but they weren't allowed on the trail--they disturb the rutting elk--so we headed back to camp. We were planning to hike and then rest our aching muscles in the town's aquatic centre.

To the pool we go and find it's not open for another hour because there was too much chlorine in the pool. To kill time, we ate bad food. My cream of vegetable soup looked like it was thickened straight up with flour. Yuck.

We get to the pool and find the big pool is still closed but everything else is opened. Eventually, the hot tub and slide are clogged with people as there's nothing else to do. However the pool finally opens and we are one of the first to jump in.

Back to camp, we eat a way better meal than the restaurant and play poker. The rain let up a little so we can finally sit around the fire. Unfortunately, it's at someone else's site so we have to tone down the sound.

Next day we pack up and head to Edmonton. Daorcey's family was having a fish fry and he wanted to surprise them. We get to the grandparent's house and they are somewhat suprised to see us. We stuff ourselves with pickerel and 5-clove Ceasar salad. Arone's landlady has kitten so I make Daorcey drive there. I play with the kitty while Daorcey looks at an extra wedding gift from Arone. It's an X-Wing kite but one of the poles is broken so we have to call an R2 unit in.

Then we begin our long drive back to Calgary. We finally arrive at home tired at 11 and don't fall asleep until midnight.