To Edmonton and Jasper in 48 hours.

Hey All!

May was very hectic with traveling a bit and returning home for a rest, that's why I haven't posted in a while. Sorry!

My leg: It's healing! The scar is still visible, knee is still slightly swollen, but in terms of extension I'm only +1 deg and in flexion I'm at 136 deg. Only a few more degrees to go to equal out my lopsided walk. Going down stairs are a little difficult. My knee makes a distinct clicking noise...BUT the doctor says to push through it. In terms of physiotherapy, I've been keeping up with it. I tend to take it to the next level and try to do some hiking on it too. I call it, "physio on a different terrain".

So okay to the mountains and back to Calgary in 48 hours.
Date of Departure: April 1, 2011
Date of Return: April 3, 2011

Melyse, a co-op student working in my lab, was leaving Calgary to return to Quebec soon. Both of us had never visited Jasper or Edmonton (I had gone to Edmonton once, but never really explored it), but really wanted to. On a whim, we decided, the heck with it! Let's go this weekend to Edmonton and Jasper.

Game Plan:
Friday - leave work at 4pm, go grocery shopping for road trip food, depart and drive 3 hours to Edmonton. Check in at a hotel for $49/night (groupon thinger), and rest up!

Saturday - Wake up at 8am, leave hotel by 9:30 to look at sites around Edmonton. Arrive at Edmonton mall at 11:00am. Shop till afternoon. Eat dinner at Lingans. Drive 3.5 hrs west towards Jasper. Stay over in Hinton.

Sunday - Wake up at 8am. Drive to Jasper. Do scenic drives to all the lakes and town site. Hike Maligne Canyon. Go visit some waterfalls. Drive 5 hours back to Calgary.

Monday - Return to work tired.

Busy? I think so. Now here's the more detailed version of my trip...

Friday:

We start driving... it's a long drive. It's a really straight drive - one with only 2 bends in the road. Once we get into the city we're on a hunt to find our hotel. People who drive in Edmonton are TERRRIBLE. It also didn't help that the road lines were barely visible. When we finally get to the hotel, we checked- in. It looked kinda sketchy. It was the Coliseum Inn. We didn't really care. As long as we got some rest, all was well. BUT, luck as we have it, there was a night club/bar attached to it. We heard the music blaring until 3am. Also, some guy with a mullet tried to hit on us, *shivers*. Mullets are common in Edmonton.

Saturday:

We wake up bright and early and decided that we wanted to visit some of the nice buildings and areas in Edmonton. We drove to Fort Edmonton...

but it was hard to understand how to get to the actual site. We couldn't tell if it was closed, open, or what. So... we saw the sign... but drove to our next destination.
We drove down a road that was said to be "trendy and unique". It was called the 124 Street area. It was not trendy...it was rather dull.
Next stop was the legislature building.


(structure outside the legisture building)

(the building)


It was very large with a view of the river. They also had these periscopes to help light the underground pathway in the building.





We didn't go in, as we were pressed for time, but it was nice to walk around. Note: It was really cold this weekend. Even Calgary had a freak snow storm this weekend.
Next stop was City Hall. There were a few cool buildings... but nothing, Ta Da worthy...

(City Hall)

(Building downtown)

Finally we just said screw it, let's do what girls do best. SHOP!

Edmonton Mall was huge. It took us so long to walk it. There's a lot of shops, 2 food courts, a bowling alley, mini putt, Santa Maria Ship replica, water park, roller coaster park, petting zoo, and my favourite, a seal show!
(Galaxy Land, the theme park)

(Waterpark)

(fancy segment of West Edmonton Mall)

(Santa Maria)



(Seal Show!)

At about 7 our tummies were rumbling. Have you guys ever watched that show on the food network, The Family Restaurant: The Quons? (http://www.thelingnan.com/FamilyRestaurant.shtml) Well it's about this asian family that run an asian restaurant. Anyways, they're actually based out of Edmonton. So obviously we went there for dinner. Unfortunately there was a wait...like...45mins, despite calling a head to reserve. Never the less, the food was delicious. Also got too meet some of the family members - chicken mom and chicken dad.



Now being 9:30 when we finished our meal, we headed for the road. Hinton was about another 3.5hrs of driving...and it was snowing and dark out. Finally arrived there at about 12:30 am. Checked in and went to bed.

Sunday:







In the morning we were greeted by these awesome mountains. 9:00am, we headed out. We drove, drove, drove and made a series of stops along the way. We first went to Medicine Lake and Maligne Lake. Of course.... everything was still frozen over.

(Medicine Lake)

(Maligne Lake)

Then we went to Maligne Canyon for a short hike around. There were a lot of bridges there. 6 to be exact. Also, the water was frozen over, so we decided to be a little adventurous. Yes, with my hobbly leg, I hopped the fence and climbed down the canyon to where the river was now a frozen block of ice.









Next we headed to Lake Annette, Lake Edith, and Lake Beauvert. I don't remember which one was which anymore... but the Fairmont Jasper Hotel was there. From the outside it didn't look that great, but the inside was pretty amazing.

(Lake Beauvert)

From there, we drove to Jasper, did a quick drive around...but then noticed there really wasn't a lot. So we decided to leave and start our drive home. It was already about 2pm, and it's a 5 hour drive to Calgary from there.

Along the way, we stopped off at Horseshoe Lake

...and then the Athabasca Falls.


So... technically it was kinda closed for the season. But seriously, Melyse and I drove all the way here. A silly sign that says, "closed" isn't going to stop us.

I'm BADASS!

On our way back we decided to stop off at the Columbia Icefields. I swear, the winds were waging a war! So we really only jumped out of the car, snapped a few pictures, and ran back in. That was enough!



We made it back to Calgary at about 8pm. Not too bad, if you ask me :). Although I do admit, it was brutal starting work the next day.

Final thought: We could've made better timing if signs were properly labeled indicating which roads were closed for the season...