walked with mom for 55 min

Got back from my trip at 11:45 last night. Long day of traveling. Left from Edmonton, Canada at 4:35 pm. Went to LA and from there to CO. Pretty round-about way to travel, but that's the way the tickets worked out.

I really enjoyed the train ride through the Canadian Rockies. The food was fantastic. It was all chilled but so good. We saw bears, a wolf, (which was my favorite), elk, deer, a puma, 2 bald eagles and an osprey. Unfortunately our second day on the train we were stuck on the tracks for 5 hours while we waited for them to fix the roads, which had washed out from so much snow melting. That meant we didn't get to Banff till almost midnight. We would really liked to have had some time shopping there. It looked like there were a lot of really cute gift stores.

I won a poetry contest on the train. We were asked to write a poem about Salmon. We read our poems to each other and then everyone voted on the winner. Mine won. So I was inducted into the Order of the Salmon and given a Salmon pin. I didn't know I could write poetry. The salmon begins his run blue/gray in color and after they spawn they turn red and then drown.

Here's my poem:

The salmon starts out blue and gray
Just another working day
Swimming upstream night and day
To reach the top and earn his pay
Then before his blushes can fade away
He reminisces on his busy day
And as his life slips away
You can hear him sigh and sadly say
Darn! Retirement was just 2 days away.

The Edmonton Mall was a big disappointment. It was huge and there were a lot of stores, but nothing that we don't have here. No really interesting gift stores. And it was loud and crowded and just overwhelming. But you never know how something will turn out till you try it.

I spent just about $100 in cash on souvenirs and gifts. I spent around $150 on the CC, $70 of which was for a meal for all 3 of us. And my parents put all the other meals on their CC and I'll get an accounting of that sometime next month and pay them back then. I'm estimating around $150 for meals.

So I think I did really well on the spending part. I got myself some really beautiful jade earrings. Two pairs, one a pair is hearts and one pair is Orcas. Gorgeous. I like to get earrings as souvenirs, because it's something I can use for years and remember where I got them from. I still have a pair of jade maple leaf earrings that I got last time I went to Canada 7 - 8 years ago.

Slept in today, it was really great to be back in my own bed. Did laundry, unpacked, got groceries, caught up on personal email, relaxed. Had a ton of mail but only about 6 pieces were worth anything. I got my $25 Great Fun/Buy.com rebate and a sample of Rolaids.

The day before I left for Canada I sold a $20 book on half.com and I sold another one today for $3.

Spent $1.59 at the post office and $40.94 at King Soopers for groceries.

While on the trip I read the following books:

Master of Wolves by Angela Knight. Romance. Very good

Dead as a Doornail by Charlaine Harris. Supernatural. Very good

Micah by Laurell K. Hamilton. Supernatural/Romance. Excellent

Dark Demon by Christine Feehan. Supernatural/Romance. Excellent.