Chasing the Puck
Trip Start
Feb 16, 2011
1
77
113
Trip End
Jun 11, 2012
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Well it was time for us to escape Banff again in search of some action! On Tuesday I had 6 hours sleep after work then Neil, Steffie and I drove down to Calgary and checked into the Econolodge Motel where we stayed when we saw the Foo Fighters concert. We headed downtown early to have a few pre-game drinks at the casino, but ended up just drinking at the Saddledome stadium. This time we had tickets in the nosebleed section - the upper level to watch the Calgary Flames play the New Jersey Devils. It was a one sided game, but there was still some good action and the score at the buzzer was 6-3. I had a few more beers at the game and we stopped in at a bar on 17th Avenue on the way home for another one. They had quite a selection so I had a Samuel Adams Boston Lager which had a fairly strong taste.
The next morning we got up early and made into the car by 9:30am to drive up to Edmonton. The highway between the cities was straight as an arrow and through the prairies so there wasn't much to see along the way. Thankfully the roads were pretty good and we made good time arriving at lunchtime. We headed straight to the West Edmonton Mall which was the world's largest mall when it was built. It has 800 stores and includes: an indoor ice rink, four radio stations, an amusement park, the world's largest wave pool, mini golf, movie theatres and a sea lion show. We were there for only four hours so we only scratched the surface, but we still had a good walk around, watched the sea lion show and played a round of adventure golf.
We got a bit lost on the way to the hotel thanks to some GPS screwing around, but eventually with the aid of a mapbook we found it. After a quick dip in the hotel pool, we got ready and went downtown to pick up Neil's mates at Boston Pizza before driving up to Rexel Place to watch the Edmonton Oilers play the New Jersey Devils. Again we found ourselves sitting in the very last row up high, but had a decent enough view of the ice. This time the action was more even, but both teams didn't play very well. After the third period the score was 1-1, but the Devils scored a goal in overtime to seal the win.
We had an early night and were up at 6:30am to get packing for the drive home. We were on the road at 8am and after a quick stop at the information centre, we drove to Red Deer before stopping for breakfast at a McDonalds inside a Walmart. I took over the driving and and we were back in Banff by 2pm with a total distance of around 900kms driven over the 48 hour period.
Next challenge - Ice Climbing!
