It's Labour Day long weekend which means Neil and Cassie went off a 'road trippin'

Before we start the ins and outs, I'm going to find out what the hell Labour Day is and why it's celebrated in Canada, back in a mo............

............... so here goes, straight off the Wiki page

Labour Day or Labor Day is an annual holiday celebrated all over the world that resulted from the labour union movement, to celebrate the economic and social achievements of workers. The majority of countries celebrate Labour Day on May 1, and it is popularly known as May Day and International Workers' Day, while some celebrate on the first Monday of September.

The celebration of Labour Day has its origins in the Eight-hour day movement, which advocated eight hours for work, eight hours for recreation, and eight hours for rest.

So now we know what it is, lets get on.

I was looking in one of my faithful books of trips and decided we should go to Athabasca.

Atherbasca is about 145km's North of Edmonton.  To be honest, it's a bit of a grim place, most of the shops seemed to have closed down and nothing much was going on.  It was a real shame as the town seemed to be very proud of its past.  Everywhere you looked there were signs telling you the history of the place.

Until 1913 it was known as Atherbasca Landing and played an important role in the fur trade.  The Atherbasca River was the main trade link and is one of the longest undammed rivers in North America (1,231 Km's)

From there we decided to head to the town of Slave Lake, there is a big lake there called Lesser Slave Lake.

Lesser Slave Lake is the second largest lake that is entirely within the Albertain boundaries.  it covers 1160 kms over 100kms long and 15kms wide.

We stopped over in Slave Lake having packed an over night bag just in case.  Slave Lake town is a bit of a strange place, quite depressing all the paces we could find to eat were pizza places, A&W or McDonalds.It was a very industrail looking town with nothing much to do.

I had to take a picture of the liquor stores as they were next door to each other, talk about competition.

We headed off towards the Lake this morning after we had our breakfast  I wanted to go to the Boreal Bird Centre which is involved in Bird Conservation. 

A loop walk just by the centre.

We were told to go drive to the Lake where they were tagging birds but it was just typical that it had to rain.  I've just noticed that I don't have one single picture of the damn Lake!

We decided to stay in the car because like a pair of idiots we didn't take any coats.

We drove out of Slave Lave and headed towards Swan Hills, then onto Fort Assiniboine.  I really needed the toilet so we drove into the small town.

A very big wagon wheel and pickaxe, just don't ask

We stopped at the museum and had a nice chat with one of the locals then headed back to Edmonton via Barrhead.

We probally won't go back that way again only to go the opposite way through Atherbasca and head to Fort McMurray.  Not sure when we'll head that way but I would like to get there before the white stuff comes along.

As i've been typing this blog entry the winds have really picked up, so I turned on "the weather network" and it seems they are saying winds of 90km's an hour.  The big red bar is stating warnings for the City of Edmonton for severe thunderstorms and a reminder that with severe thunderstorms there are chances of  tornados.  ekkk.

I'm going to grab a glass of wine to chill my nerves, see you.

Saturday

We decided to venture out to the Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Village its off the Yellowhead Highway just after you past Elk Island.  There is a small charge for addmission.

We took a picnic because most of the time when we go to these places it's mega expensive for a stupid little sandwich.

Bellis National Railway Station

The Village is a living Museum where the staff get dressed up and act as if they are living during the era.  In the early 20th Century the mahority of settlers in east central Alberta  came from Western Ukraine.  Some of the oldest Ukrainian comunities in North America are found east central Alberta, directly east of Edmonton.

Bellis Home Grain Co Elevator

The village never existed in history, it is brought together to to tell a story.  The actors speak to you as if there are living in that time.

 Neil with the Blacksmiths car, shhhhh don't tell him.

St Vladimir's Ukrianian Greek Orthodox Church

Free horse ride around the village, back in Blighty they would have cgarged at least five quid.

How many piggies, well there was three if you really must know.

Chick, Chick, Chick, CHICKEN. lol

Inside one of the buildings, I was drawn to the dried flowers.

All in all it was a good day out, it was another hot day though peaking at 30 degrees C so walking around was a little bit tiring.  I probally would only go again if we had guests but its another one of them places I can tick off and say I've been to.

Sunday (today 30th August 2009)

I was looking in my "Nature walks and Sunday Drives 'round Edmonton" book again and came across Telford Lake (Leduc) which is about 35km's south of Edmonton City Centre on the East side of Leduc.

So off we went in the car, camera and husband packed up.

Oh look, it's me!

Telford Lake is a Nature Reserve on the edge of Leduc, you'll see loads of cyclists and dog walkers down there.  There are a few veiwing plaforms so you can look out on the Lake.

Loving Husband and Wife

Bird Condo, WOW!

A plane that has just taken off from Edmonton International, which should really be called Leduc Airport as Edmonton is about a half hour drive away.

Bearing in mind that Neil is a very tall lad (6 foot 7") so these Sunflowers are tall!

This is what Neil was doing while I was taking all these pictures I decided I wanted to wake him up LOL, oh come on you would too.  I set the timer on the camera and ......

........didn't get the reaction I was hoping for.  I get told that I'm an evil wife though, LOL.

This is where the fun begins, trying to get a shot of a god damn Dragonfly.  I tell you the ones in Alberta are on speed or something.  They never seem to stop, and I also caught two having sex in the public.  Not on camera mind, they wanted royalties and I couldn't afford to pay them. 

Blink and you miss it, I know it's a really crap picture of a Dragonfly but like I said they are really hard buggers to get a picture of, they had more "important" issues they wanted to get on with! (if you know what I mean)

Now have I snapped the first signs of Autumn, or should I be normal Canadian and say "Fall".

Now guys, I thought I didn't get any shots of Dragonflies but Neil was a determined little soul and thought he could do better the next few are his "efforts" bless

No........... I can't see any............ can you guys.  My husband thinks i'm a B.I.T.C.H but I don't remeber him 'ever' giving you guys that Yukon entry he promised you and me, so lets say that we've got him back.

and talking of the Yukon I have some pics of that, so here they are.

Neil was at Signpost Forest, Watson Lake  which is probally one of the main attractions on the Alaska Highway.

We weren''t really up to much last night but yesterday when I was listening to The Bear at work I heard that Jennifer Coolidge was going to be on at The Comic Strip.  You all know who she all is, she was in one of my favorite movies Legally Blonde but she is well know for playing 'Stiffler's Mum' in American Pie.

I thought she would probally be a good laugh so we went along to see if we could get tickets and was quite surprised when we got there and managed to bag a couple at just under $40 each.

She managed to pack them in though, we've been at that Comedy Club before and it wasn't that full but she managed to get a full house.  Good for her.

There was a couple of acts on before her that were quite funny/average.

When she came on I personally thought she looked amazing.  She was a very good stand up act the only problem was towards the end of her act she seemed to lose it.  She seemed to be getting very distracted by a few members of the audience taking video clips on their cell phones.  It was starting to ruin her act, she started with lots of erms.  I was willing her just to ignore it but she pleeded with them to stop.

She should have just carried on and ignored them and used the future "you tube" clips as adverts.  I'm not sure if she has done stand up before or not but she was looking a bit nervous at times.

Apart from all that she was really funny, and $40 well worth spent.  If you get the chance to see her then I would reccomend you do.

Just fancied writing an entry not sure what about as I don't seem to have any drama, touchwood.

Oh, the penny just dropped, I know what to Blog about, bloody supermarkets!  I wasn't feeling too well at all yesterday I seem to be having these headaches everyday combined with a sore throat.  Today I've taken a hayfever tablet just in case its an allergy of some sort.

Anyway, I went into a certain Supermarket yesterday on my day off, it's in the lower budget end of supermarkets and I very rarely go into that store because it has the longest queues you have ever seen.  If you know me, you would know that I hate queues in fact I would put stuff back to avoid having to stand in one.  When I walked in I inspected the queues and they weren't that bad in fact there weren't any.  I went in at about 10am after paying a bank bill, which is another story I have just remembered, oh I'll have to tell you that one!   Lets put supermarkets on pause for a second.

I went to the Bank to pay our electric and my cell phone bill.  The girl behind the counter said "Oh I like you accent, are you from Australia"

Smiling politely, as I have never  heard that one before I replied "No I'm from England"

She then replies with a "I really like the British accent"

I stopped and thought for a moment, well she can't really like it that much can she, she thought I was from down under.

Anyway she starts looking at my bills and sees the cell provider I'm with and says this is the best one, in her opnion.  I thought great thanks for letting me know, then she procedes to tell me how one provider she was with ripped her off.  Then starts telling me her life story, about her and her ex splitting and how she didn't need the two phone plan.  I must have one of these trusting faces as it seems to happen to me all the time.  People like to tell me their life stories.  She went on for some time, I only went in to pay two bills.

Anyway back to the Supermarket when I finally got out of the bank, one thing I would like to know about Canadian shopping is why are biscuits so expensive.  For example a packet of NICE bicuits back in the UK you could pick them buggers up for about 54p so why on planet Canada do I have to pay over $3 for them!

Another thing I hate about supermarkets is everytime I go people always seem to want to target me with their shopping carts.  Its like a Wii Game, how many carts can I dodge.  People seem to be in some sort of a trance when they go into a Supermarket.  They have no idea that other people are shopping too until they get to the till.  People will block aisles up with their carts and you have to push them out of the way in order to get to what you want, come on people think.

God I sound like a moody bitch but no I'm not it's surely just about peoples lack in common courtesy. 

To put the nail into the coffin by the time I got to the till the queues were big, but I had too much stuff in my basket so couldn't start putting it all back.  Anyway I had a Chocolate Chip muffin and it looked so good.

There were one or two things I forgot off the list so last night we went back to the supermarket, a different one this time by the way.

We got to the checkout and I had my own shopping bag, save the panet and all that.  I gave it over to the assistant and she says....... no joke.........she says "Mmmmmm this bag smells good, just like you"

I thought I might have heard her wrong and just carried on, she said a few other little strange comments.  When we were sat down on the couch last night, (I have the habbit of things coming back to me, later after the event) I said to Neil did you hear what that that girl said to me.  He heard the same thing we both thought it was a little werid.

Just before bedtime last night there was a thunder storm, to be honest we needed one just to clear the air a bit.  I left the window open and let the sound of the rain and thunder send us to sleep., and it did the trick