DAY 12

I fucking LOVE Alberta!!!  Seriously......What`s not to love - great shopping and IKEA!!  I am not THAT easily swayed, but I must admit that Calgary is a very pretty city and I LOVE to shop!

Our Gap bounty!!

Today we got up, cranked up the A/C for the girls, plugged in TomTom (our GPS) and were off to IKEA.  We had planned on going to an outlet mall after, but on our way to IKEA I spotted the mother load!!  Across the street was a great outlet mall with tonnes of deals!  We spent about 2 hours in the Gap Factory Outlet.  The entire store was 40% off everything!!  Even previously reduced items!  We got ALOT of stuff.  I won`t say how much we spent because it`s kind of ridiculous.  I do have to say that Trent bought 9 pairs of underwear.  Yes - 9.  They had a great sale on thong underwear.  For some reason he is wearing them backwards, but I hope he will soon figure out the right way to wear them!!  

After the Gap, we headed over to IKEA for some lunch.  For those of you who have never eaten at IKEA, this is a MUST!!  They have the BEST food and it`s so cheap!!  My favorite is the Lingon Berry juice they have on tap and FREE refills!  Can I get a HELLZ YA!!??  After lunch, we spent a couple of hours wandering through IKEA.

Yum Yum Lingon Berry in my Tum Tum!!

Yay IKEA!!

 We picked up some great deals!!  Not to mention my oh so favorite Lingon Berry jelly!  It's like cranberry sauce, but in a jar, ready to eat and OH so GOOD!!

By this time, it was going on 2:30 our time, 3:30 JAFA time.  We weren't sure what else we wanted to do, so we decided to head back towards the campground.  Since Olympic Park is right next door to us, we decided to stop in and have a look around.

Olympic Park - View from the bottom.  God forbid we are allowed a view from the top!

Calgary hosted the 1988 Winter Olympics and the park where all the events took place is still used today as a training facility.  We were kind of looking forward to checking things out and to see what kind of events and fun things they have going on throughout the summer.  We pulled into the parking lot and it was packed!  We thought, "wow - this is going to be good!!"  Trent was busy singing the theme song David Foster created for the '88 Olympics.  I am not sure what the tune is but whatever he was signing sounded more like a cross between the Chariots of Fire theme song and Rick Hansen's Man in Motion song.  Oh well - at least he was enjoying himself.  We were following a family from Colorado into Olympic Park and you could tell they were just as excited as us to be there!!  We went into the Visitor Information booth, and asked the old bird minding the desk what there was to do.  She looked at us with a blank stare.   I said, "What is there to do here, at Olympic Park?"  By this time her perfume was making me nauseous.  She still looked stunned in typical JAFA form and said, "Oh - well......we have the zip line open and really that's about it until July 1st when the bobsled opens."  At this point I realized our trip to the park was a little anti-climactic!  What do you mean there is nothing else to do!?  This is the site of the '88 Olympics woman!!  In my opinion, there is more to do at Silver Star.  Wow - what a disappointment.  We did walk through the gift shop and I tried out the bobsled.

Since I have mad skills, I am pretty sure I would come in first!

We did opt out of the ass rape they were offering.  $60 for a 20 second zip line ride from the top of the ski jump to the bottom of the hill.  Even as I am typing this, I can't believe they didn't even have the freaking chair lift open!!  Not that I would have rode it, since I have a fear of heights.....but come on people!!  There were so many people buzzing around that place pretending to work, but it didn't look like anything was being accomplished.  Typical.  We stayed maybe 15 minutes and walked out together with the family from Colorado.  Not sure how their Canadian summer vacation is so far, but I sure hope they plan on visiting BC to actually enjoy the country, rather than being eaten alive by JAFA mosquitos!

Anywho - back to the task at hand........

We got back to the trailer, took the girls for a walk and managed to FINALLY enjoy some sun and sit outside and spend the rest of the afternoon having some drinks and enjoying the scenery.

The girls sat out with us and enjoyed munching on some lovely smoked bones.  Nothing like a good bone to pass the afternoon!

 

After enjoying a lovely BBQ dinner, the bugs started to come out of hiding.  We finished our drinks, tidied up, looked through our purchases and now we have retired to the trailer for the evening.  Tomorrow we will be off and either head for home, or spend the night somewhere en route - depending on how we feel.  How gypsy like of us!!  I will be sure to keep you updated of our whereabouts.  We wouldn't want TomTom getting us lost on some back road in Utah!!

Have a wonderful night and enjoy your day tomorrow!  It's a short week, so yay!!  

LUV LUV!!