More Amazing Alberta

Wow, it's been a while since we updated this! A lot has gone on, but we will try to keep it as condensed as possible.
We went to Livingstone Falls as planned last Monday, where we were met by rain and near freezing temperatures, not to mention hail the next morning. That was the coldest it has been for us so far ... we were in many layers of clothes at night, including toques and snowboard socks and still it was numbingly cold! We stayed there for two nights, and then drove north to McLean Creek Camper Centre, in Kananaskis Country, along the way seeing herds upon herds of rams. We were happy to get back on pavement as we neared McLean, but the trade-off for such civilized things was that we were in RV country, where the sites were gravel and the privacy was nonexistent. We were staying there for three days, which made all of those things feel unbearable, but it was the only campground in the region with showers (even though they were $2.00 for five minutes!), and we wanted to be close to Calgary for the Stampede. On Thursday we went to Calgary to see their Science Centre's Body Worlds exhibition, (the picture on that link is one of the things we saw, and it's a real body) which was absolutely amazing. We were blown away by what we saw, and stayed there for hours looking at many variations of real bodies of people who had donated themselves to science. Unreal!
The next day was the one we had been waiting for ... the Calgary Stampede! (<-- such a cool picture! We were sitting under where it said "Calgary Stampede"). We got gold seating tickets for both the afternoon Rodeo and the evening Grandstand Show, and in between toured the city a little bit and ate at Milestone's on their famous Stephen Ave. pedestrian walkway. It wasn't entirely pedestrian at one point: a very confused young tourist and her sister, both slurping their Booster Juices, tried to turn from the "sidewalk" part of the street to the "road" part, crushing the passenger door into a fixed metal garbage container. As she tried to back up, she ended up denting and scratching the entire length of her car, getting so stuck a passerby had to take over and drive the car for her all the way out of the street (yeesh, tourists eh?).
Anyway, the Stampede actually lived up to its claim of being "the greatest outdoor show on Earth" ... we were amazed by the Snowbirds, the Rodeo itself, the four motorbikes criss-crossing each other in a huge metal ball while more did tricks in the air above them, girls doing triple back flips onto balance beams that were no wider than their feet being carried by men beneath them, the hundreds of dancers, the fireworks .... it was incredible. The whole day was so great, we thought it would be a once in a lifetime experience but now we want to go back for sure!
The morning after the Stampede, we left MacLean Creek suffering from a major excitement hangover after so many quiet weeks of camping. We spent a long time at a Mazda Dealership getting a few things fixed up, and by the time we left at 5:30 pm it was pouring. We drove several hours to Elk Island National Park, just east of Edmonton, where upon arrival at 10 pm we found out that they had no sites left, nor did any park within a 2 hour range. Uh oh! We ended up having to make a nervous late night call to Chris's cousin Bev, who lives north of Edmonton in Fort Saskatchewan, to ask if we could start our visit a night early. She and her husband Bill were the best! They took us in and made us feel right at home, and we even got to sleep in a real bed! They also have two amazing dogs, Mabel and Chubby, who made us feel nice and loved and welcome, for a fair trade of hugs and petting. The next day, we checked out Edmonton a little bit, and even got to see Jake Raynard, a friend of Chris's from high school. He and his wife Mia own a tea shop downtown called Cha Island Tea Co., which was so cool, and we made plans to get together there the next day (his only day off in a month!!!). That night we made Bev a steak dinner, which Bill couldn't join because he is in the Military and was working a 13 hour (!!) shift that night.
The next morning we checked out the infamous West Edmonton Mall which was wilder than we could have imagined: it looked like they squeezed all of the Canada's Wonderland roller coasters into the "play area" of the mall! Feeling overwhelmed by it all we left in a daze, forgetting to even see the zoo part which we were so excited about. We saw Jake after that and had a blast at his closed shop, playing Settlers of Catan (which helped us greatly ... we were having major withdrawal since playing it addictively in Thornbury!) and eating Belgian Waffles that are a part of his menu and so delicious. It was such a great day .... topped off with a great Mexican Dinner back at Bev and Bill's with their friends and their two dogs as well.
We were going to leave yesterday to head back into the camping world, but after about 3o straight hours of rain we realized it might be best to extend our stay under a roof. So instead of setting up a tent on saturated ground, we lay on the couch and had a completely relaxing day of doing absolutely nothing except watch TV (a first in so long!). It was great to have a chance to relax like that with Bev and Bill too, since the days before had been so busy. We finally got to sit around in our pj's and enjoy each others' company.
Today it's back to the camping adventures, and we are headed out to try Elk Island National Park for a second time. Hopefully they will have a site for us this round!
(PS we put up new pictures again ... still in the same Facebook album as last time so scroll through to the new ones!)
(PPS you don't need Facebook to check these out!! ... we thought we should clarify that since we had a few questions about it)
Here's the link! (CLICK THIS).