Las Vegas and Beyond

Our last night on the road was spent in Las Vegas.  We had been planning on having dinner at the best hamburger place in the country in Caesar's Palace, but when we got there we were told that  four of the resort's restaurants were without power in their kitchens.  Imagine!  No power in Las Vegas!  We noticed that the casinos were running full tilt - I guess the power is diverted to the 'important' parts of the resorts at times like that ;)  Anyway, never ones to go hungry, we wandered around until we found one of the famous Vegas buffets, also in Caesar's Palace, and had a plentiful meal there.

The last time Lloyd and I had been in Las Vegas we went to a show at Planet Hollywood.  It was a Beatles tribute band and we enjoyed it immensely.  So we decided to go again so Emily and Allan could learn to appreciate the early Beatles as much as we do.  It was great!  If anything, the show was better than the last time we saw it.  Ed Sullivan was there, Austin Powers put in an appearance, and of course there were 60's style go-go dancers.  But the singing was amazing..totally their own voices, no lip synching.  The 'lads' even slightly resembled the fab four. We weren't allowed to take pictures during the show so the only one I got was an after-the-show meet and greet.

Singers portraying ringo, George, Paul and John, with half of Ed Sullivan as well.

We walked on the Strip for awhile, stopping at the Bellagio to see the famous dancing waters performance.

Lloyd and I on the Strip

Emily and Allan with the Bellagio in the background

Then, because the strip is so long, we drove down it and back again so we could see all the neon lights and happy people, wedding chaples and neon lights.  It's an amazing place.

Emily on a pedway

Lloyd's favorite neon sign on the older part of the strip

A bit blurry taken from the moving car

In the morning we headed out, stopping at the Hoover Dam where we got out and walked across the dam before getting in the car and driving over the new bridge which bypasses the dam and cuts off at least half an  hour of travel time between Nevada and Arizona. The dam used to be part of the highway, with all traffic between Arizona and Nevada in this part of the state having to drive across the dam.  After 9/11 though with the threat of terrorism so real, the new bridge was designed and built to keep traffic away from the dam itself.  The dam's destruction would have catastrophic consequences in the the western US.

Allan, Emily and Lloyd on the dam with the new bridge in the background

Downstream from the dam - the Colorado River which was dammed and
created Lake Mead

Emily and Allan with Arizona and Lake Mead in the background.
It's an enormous lake spanning miles of Nevada desert.  The white mark all
around the lake where it meets the land, indicates the level the lake used to be.
It has been shrinking over the years, creating some concern.

Looking the other direction - toward Nevada - Lake Mead in the background

Looking down the dam

Me, on the top of the dam

We finally arrived at our destination in Surprise, AZ in the late afternoon, bringing an end to our adventurous three day drive down from Alberta. 

Along The Road

We did more on our road trip than break down, get rescued, and eat great food...although all that made for an exciting and tasty trip.  Here's some shots from along the way. 

Our trip took us due south from Alberta, into the US through Montana, Idaho, Utah, Nevada and finally to Arizona.  We made a few stops along the way.


You've already been introduced to Basin, MT, site of the infamous Expedition death.

The nicest old building on Main St.

After a timely rescue by Lloyd, we continued on our southward trek, rushing through Idaho without incident...or photo op...and into Utah, where we stopped at the new 5 billion dollar mall in downtown Salt Lake City.  It really is quite an amazing place, more like a town square than a mall, incorporating renovated old buildings, outdoor spaces as well as spacious indoor areas, fountains, stores, etc.

Emily and Allan in the mall

The creek, complete with fish, which meanders through the main level

The center of the mall.  The buildings all around are part of the mall as well.

One of the mall fountains with the LDS Temple in the background

Lloyd, with the retractable roof overhead



From Salt Lake, we continued on to Filmore, UT, where we spent the night in a lovely motel.  Then early next morning we drove south stopping to explore the small Kolob Canyon before going onward through St. George, and the Virgin River Gulch into a corner of Arizona then slightly west into Nevada.

Kolob Canyon where the rocks and roads are red

Emily and Allan at Kolob...not sure what Allan's looking at

Lloyd  resting at a canyon picnic area

And you have to know that in Nevada we made our next stop in Las Vegas.  But that's a story for the next blog entry.

to be continued...

Food Fun

We've had some interesting and fun food on our road trip down to Arizona.  Our Son-in-law, Allan, uses an app on his iPhone to check out promising restaurants in advance and so far has picked a couple of excellent ones.

The first of Allan's food stops was a restaurant in Helena, MT which was a huge cavernous place that was, we figured out, a popular Carroll College students' hang-out in a strip mall.  It was practically empty when we got there because college classes were over for the summer and there weren't any students hanging around.  I was kind of skeptical of the place at first sight but boy did my mind ever change fast when I saw the food at the Staggering Ox.

They have a patent on their famous Clubfoot Sandwich, billed as the best sandwich in the land.  It's an amazing idea for a sandwich style - one that I'm going to try to make at home.

This is the sandwich Allan ordered, on cheddar/garlic bread.  The bread is baked in a can.  Each sandwich is a whole 'loaf'.  the bottom is left intact and the shape of the can remains.  The center is scooped out and the sandwich filling is put in the remaining hollow loaf.  It is the only sandwich that doesn't allow the filling to fall out when you're eating it, because it has sides and a bottom that are all joined.  And it stands up on its own.

And the flavor.....I had a club sandwich on dill bread....it was soooo good!  You just pick the whole thing up, squeeze the top together just enough to take a bite, and you're transported to sandwich heaven!  I'll definitely want to stop there again.

When we got to Salt Lake City, Utah, we stopped to check out the huge new mall, City Creek Mall, that recently opened there.  It's an amazing place, built in the city center, a mixture of indoor and outdoor mall, with a retractable roof over some areas, with a creek running through it.  We found a bakery/restaurant - Kneaders -  and stopped for a quick lunch there.  As in most bakery restaurants, the bread was delicious and fresh.  I had cream of asparagus soup and a chicken salad crossiant.

I didn't get pictures of Lloyd's, Emily's or Allan's lunches as they disappeared too quickly.

The next fun food stop was in Las Vegas, where there are many fine restaurants.  Allan chose a French restaurant in the Venetian Hotel on the strip to have breakfast...a little classier than the Staggering Ox or Kneaders, but a lovely dining experience nevertheless.

Thomas Keller's Bouchon

The food here was esquisite...perfectly prepared and graciously served.

Allan chose a lunch item for breakfast - Croque Madame - ham in a toasted brioche topped with a sunny-side-up egg, served with piles of delicious fresh french fries.



 Emily had Le Jardin - eggs, brioche, sauteed spinach and fresh tomatoes



And I had the Omelet du Jour - chicken, cheese, onions, and tomatoes, with bacon and toasted brioche.  And fresh squeezed orange juice.  Everything was absolutely perfect.  I didn't get a picture of Lloyd's but it featured bacon, eggs and croquettes.

A great way to start the day and the long drive from Las Vegas to Surprise, AZ.

Bon appetite everyone!

Stuck in Basin

Our vacation started with a bang on Sunday...or rather a bang, clunk, rattle, gasp, and dead silence!

First of all, it started with Lloyd having to send Emily, Allan and I on ahead from Lethbridge while he drove 5 hours north to Edmonton to tend to a work-related emergency.  So the three of us set out in our 2004 Ford Expedition, fresh from the dealership's repair shop and ready to go. 

We crossed into the US uneventfully, stopped for gas an hour later, and enjoyed our drive south, stopping in Helena, Montana 5 hours later for lunch.  Half an hour later we were driving up and down low mountain roads with a terrible noise coming from the engine.  We decided to turn off at the next possible spot and see if we could find a mechanic to check out the rumble, thump, diminishing power, etc. that the vehicle was throwing at us.  We stopped to make a turn off the highway and lost all power.  We got it going again and crept in - making a terrible noise - to the little town  village  hamlet two street place called Basin, Montana.  It was a former mining town, now practically deserted since the mines closed.  There the Expedition breathed her last gasp and died...not to be started again until we deposited large amounts of cash into her system.

This is where we came to a shuddering stop...very appropriate

Not much hope for help in Basin.

Thank goodness we are members of AAA.  Even out in what seemed to be the middle of nowhere,  but luckily with good reception for our cell phone, one call and we were rescued.

The trusty AAA card - never leave home without it!

While we were waiting for help to arrive, in the form of a large wrecker big enough to piggy-back our vehicle, the three of us walked back along the town's only road (that we could see).  Not a very prosperous town any more, although the one place we actually saw people was in the Leaning Tower of Pizza pizza shop, which catered to the campers in the area.  There was a dog in every trailer yard and broken down house yard.  We didn't wander too far, not knowing how safe it was to leave the vehicle unattended, although it wouldn't have been worth anyone's while to try to steal it.

Main Street, Basin, Montana

Rickety looking barn - there were two beautiful horses in the side yard

The old stone house

Finally the wrecker arrived, hooked up the Expedition and the three of us crowded into the truck cab with the driver, Kevin, and headed back to Helena for servicing.  This was the fun part of the trip - riding in a tow truck!!! Surely everybody's dream.  It actually was fun though.  Our driver, Kevin, had to be in his seventies and kept us entertained with stories as we drove along.  We saw 4 dead deer along the way and Kevin told us how long they had been there, what kind of vehicle had hit each one, what happened to the vehicles involved, and finally reported that the county would be along overnight and remove the carcasses. 

Kevin, our rescuer, loading the Expedition

When we got to Helena, Kevin deposited the vehicle at the repair shop and then insisted on driving us to a motel where we could spend the night - being Sunday night, the repair shop was closed so there was nothing we could do about the car.  So when we got to the motel, Kevin gave us a coupon for a 20% discount and the nearby Perkins restaurant, a business card for 'the best mechanic in the area', and headed off for steak at his daughter's place.

It's nice to be welcomed! There sits the Expedition behind the sign at the repair shop.

In the meantime, I texted Lloyd to let him know our situation and to tell him that we were handling it.  He had just arrived in Edmonton but immediately turned around and drove five hours back to Lethbridge and then another five hours to find us.  What a guy!  He's sure not one to leave his wife and daughter stranded in a 'foreign' country with a wrecked vehicle.  He got to the motel just before 4am and slept for a couple hours before dealing with our immediate problem.

We decided to take Kevin's advice and had the car towed five miles down the road to Mike's Auto Repair in Montana City, Montana.  There we arranged to have a rebuilt engine ($$$) put into the Expedition and we'd arrange to pick it up on our return trip. 

And with that our Montana adventure ended.  Lloyd and I, Emily and Allan, got into the 2012 Mazda 6 to finish our trip, knowing there'd be no more car breakdown adventures on this trip (knock wood).

...to be continued...

Redundancies

Today I finally got my kitchen organized and all the boxes unpacked and put away.  If Jenn hadn't done the big stuff on the weekend, I'd still be in there trying to find a place for everything.  And I know what one of my problems was...redundancies.  I had...

- 8 complete sets of dinnerware - that's more than enough for our entire family of 34 to use in one sitting!

- 5 dozen drinking glasses

- 2 complete sets of pots and pans

- 2 electric beaters

- 2 popcorn poppers

- 5 can openers - four of which don't work because they need new batteries

- 10 sets of measuring spoons - one with measures for 'dash', 'pinch', and 'smidgen'.  There's only 9 sets in the picture.  I found another one after the picture had been taken. 

- 6 nut/lobster crackers - because we eat so much lobster?  I wish!

- 3 ice cream scoops - because you can never have too much ice cream.

- 6 potato peelers

- 2 corkscrews - even though neither Lloyd nor I drink wine

- 3 complete sets of cutlery

and enough sharp knives to outfit a small army!

And that's just the beginning.  I had to sort through all that stuff, decide what to keep, what to give to daughters, and what to take to Goodwill. 


What packrats we've become.  You'd think moving every few years would weed out some of the redundancies, but not so, in spite of the fact that we've been 'downsizing' these last few years.  Hah!  I shudder to think what I'd have to pack up if I'd lived in any one place for ten years or more.  Mind boggling.

Ah well.  I'm almost finished...just a few more boxes to unpack.  Not counting, of course, all my scrapbooking supplies, which I'll leave till the last because that's going to be a bigger job than the kitchen, but a labor of love so it'll be fun.  Redundancies are good in scrapbooking!

We're suffering through a heat wave here in Alberta - temps over 30C all week (that's in the 90s for my American friends).  Thank goodness for air conditioning.  I can't complain though because this weekend Lloyd and I are doing the unthinkable - driving to Arizona where the temps are in the 40sC!  We're insane, and so are Emily and Allan for coming with us.  Life's an adventure.

Enjoy.

Back at Last

One or two of you may have noticed that I've been 'away' since June 30.  It wasn't my intention to  take such a long break but life got in the way.  And in our lives, that means another relocation...our 22nd in the 41 years we've been married!  We're counting on this one to be our last...knock wood!

Moves used to be easy...Lloyd's employers would arrange for a moving company to come and pack up our house and move us to wherever our next stop was.  All I had to do was make sure I packed enough clothes for the family to last us until we arrived at our destination, where the moving van would arrive and men would carry all our 'stuff' into the new house and I put it all away. 

Now we do it on our own - hard work at our age - but we've been blessed with wonderful children, inlaws and friends who seem willing to lend a hand when needed.

So we no longer live in Edmonton but have moved five hours south into our home in Lethbridge that we bought 5 years ago and have been getting ready for Lloyd's retirement next year.  We decided to move down now to save on the expense of maintaining a residence in Edmonton while Lloyd finishes up his last year of work.

Our biggest problem this time was what to do with all our duplicate furniture, etc.  Our Edmonton place was fully furnished and over the past five years we furnished our Lethbridge home as well.  Not only with furniture but with everyday stuff like linens, dishes, pots and pans, etc.  That sorted itself out fairly well too with a daughter taking our living room furniture, a son taking our dining room set, another one taking a bed and desk, someone else taking our third and fourth set of dishes, etc.  It's amazing how much stuff a couple accumulates over time.  Yesterday as daughter Jenny was unpacking boxes in my kitchen, I was repacking several more for one of my daughters.    If I'm left with more things than I need, after everyone else has decided what they want, I'll box the remainder up and take it to the Salvation Army or Diabetes Association for resale.

I have a feeling it's going to take me awhile to get everything organized and placed where I want it.  My scrapbooking room will be the last one I organize, and then I'll just stay in it for a week or two and play!!!

The drive down was fairly uneventful.  Lloyd drove the U-Haul truck and I followed him in the car.  I had a passenger though.  Remember the kittens that were born on May 13?  Well, they're more than ready to be separated from their mother so it fell to me to wretch the little brown kitten from the bosom of his family and bring him down here to join my son Mike's family.  The poor little thing howled all the way down.  I stopped once to let him out of his carrier for a cuddle and he calmed right down, but then I had a hard time getting him back in.  As soon as we got out of the car at our Lethbridge home and I let him out of the carrier, he was so excited and happy.  He ran around smelling everything and jumping at critters in the grass and was really playful.  He likes his new family and has settled in really well.

Chip with his new family.  2 year old Hannah was nervous around the cat so
cousin James (front with the big grin) sat in instead.

Jenny and her family had come down ahead of us to help us unload and get settled.  While they were waiting for us to arrive, they all worked at weeding our little patch of flowers along the fence.  Our lilys had been mostly hidden by the tall grasses and weeds.  They did an amazing job of clearing it out.

My little strip of garden - just lilys planted there now.

This pretty one has a new guardian - an owl given to me by daughter Mary for my birthday

They spent the weekend with us. Jenn's an amazing worker and almost single-handedly organized my kitchen while Anders and the boys carried boxes and boxes and boxes of stuff to their assigned rooms. You'd think that five boys would just be underfoot, but these grandsons were great. The oldest, Jonah, at 15 years old is about 6'2" so I frequently called on him to reach the top shelves for me.  It wasn't all work though - one evening Anders, Jonah and I took time out to play Scrabble on my iPad. Those two extremely smart people were humiliated to be beat soundly by their doddering old grandmother/mother-inlaw!!!

But just look at Jonah...I glanced across the table at him and thought I was playing Scrabble with Justin Bieber...only better looking!!!

So that's my excuse for not being around lately - a valid one I think. 

Have a nice week.

Happy Birthday Canada!

Canada Day on July 1 this year celebrates Canada's 145th birthday.  Yea!  Celebrations across the country will include face painting

Canada Day birthday cakes

Fireworks

 parades, picnics, barbeques, family get togethers, and all manner of fun.

Here are a few fun facts about Canada, courtesy of Lucy Izan at Readers' Digest

Our beavers have built a dam that is visible from outer space. 
The 2,790 ft. structure is located in Wood Buffalo National Park, Alberta

Jasper, Alberta is the largest dark sky preserve in the world...a great place for seeing stars without conflicting ground lights to hde them.

Twillingate, Newfoundland, is the home of a winery that makes wine from iceburg water.

80% of the world's mustard seed is grown in Saskatchewan and exported worldwide.
Isn't that something you always wondered about?!

Canada's Parliament buildings in Ottawa house a sanctuary for stray cats.  They have little wooden 'houses' to shelter them on Parliament Hill.  People are encouraged not to use the sanctuary as a dropping off place for unwanted cats however.  The resident cats don't take kindly to this.  Somewhere in my collection of photographs we have a picture of me petting one of the Parliament strays back in the 1990s.

Canada's a great place to live.  The climate varies from Arctic cold to desert heat, depending on which part of the country you live in.  We have large cities, small towns, acres and acres of ranchland, majestic mountains, fertile plains, rivers and lakes and forests...the best of all worlds.  Come visit us sometime.  We're very polite you know.  And very few of us say 'eh'.

Have a happy Canada Day celebration.