The waitress at the hotel restaurant this morning looked like she was manning the place solo. It took her about 15 minutes just to seat me, yet the place wasn’t busy. I guess even five people make it busy though, if you’re the one at cash, waiting on the tables, and cooking. I ordered as soon as I sat down, but waited another 20 minutes to get served, so had to eat quickly, then waited at the cash register for awhile for her to get to me. I got out of the restaurant at 8:05. Thank goodness everything was packed. I thought I was getting picked up at 8:30 but as soon as I got into the room, the phone rang. My ride was already there, so I dashed out.

The first session this morning was at Ecole Lacomb with grade 6s – about 140 of them in the gym. There is a two hour break between my first and second readings of the day and I was looking forward to ploughing through some of the emails I’ve received since being on the road but the school has so many filters that it wasn’t possible. I’m hoping to do that later on after the library visit at the end of the day. Writing detailed messages with my thumbs on a blackberry is less than ideal.

The kids this morning were great. I was glad that I had my chattervox because the acoustics in a gym are always less than ideal. They had a microphone set up in case I needed it, but the chattervox blasted quite nicely. There is an Olympic wrestler talking to the kids right now and she is borrowing my chattervox. I hope she doesn’t mess with it too much. It’s mine! <s>

Later…

She did mess with my chattervox. The headset was all stretched apart and the fanny pack was put at a different setting. I couldn’t get it set right for the rest of the day and even into the next day it wasn’t working well until the afternoon. Never again will I loan it out.

The two afternoon sessions at Ecole Lacomb were lovely. Great kids. Also, there were three Korean girls who were quite enthralled with the Korean edition of Silver Threads.

 

After the sessions, I was driven to Mary C Moore Public Library a few blocks away. This was a beautiful new facility and Christina Petrisor is such an enthusiastic librarian that it was inspiring. She told me that she had no idea how many people would come out for the event. About 21 people came, a mixture of kids and adults. I did a storytelling of Enough with the children sitting down in the pit and then did a question and answer session for the general audience. Alot of good questions. It was such an attentive crowd that when the session ended at 5, everyone (including kids) were still sitting and waiting for more. The last person didn’t leave until 15 minutes after.

Christina and her husband drove me to Red Deer to take me for supper – at It’s All Greek to Me. We got lost numerous times and I had to admire the patience of Christina’s husband. After a great dinner, the couple drove me to Olds in a snow storm. The Best Western at Olds was great. Good pillows, a TV that worked, free internet, main storey room, and a great pool – though I didn’t get a chance to use it.

As I walked into the room, my phone was ringing, It was Mary, my second driver of the next day, wanting me to give a message to the first driver of the day.

 

 

The driver was kind enough to detour for a coffee first thing this morning. A GOOD cup of coffee. That and a pack of raisins from my purse made breakfast. As we headed out of Jasper we could see elk relaxing at the side of the road. It was still dark so I didn’t take photos.

 

When we went through Jasper National Park it was still dark, so couldn’t see the mountains as we left. The early morning is a dangerous time for moose and deer on the road, but we didn’t see any. Did see one coyote make a dash for it.

The halfway point of the trip is a stop in Edson at the Tim Horton’s there. Employees are scarce all over Alberta and Edson is no different. When we drove in on the Friday night, it took 20 minutes to get a cup of tea because the workers are all about 12 years old. We were lucky this morning. No lineup. The 12 year old was speedy.

Beautiful clear cold dry day. Unlike the trip in, no fog or snow or dust storm.

Joan Galat had told me a week ago when she saw that I was going to be staying at the Nisku Inn that she had to “rescue me”. We made plans to meet for an early dinner or late lunch. When I got to the Inn, I at first thought she was nuts. The Inn looks great. Pool, exercise room, restaurants. I looked forward to having a swim, as yesterday I didn’t have time. Except the pool was closed. No problem. I’ll go to the gym. With this torn meniscus I like to do some exercise every day or every other day but I have to be careful what I do. An elliptical trainer is perfect, as is swimming. Well, in the gym, there was a treadmill (no good for knee) a bike (ditto) an elliptical trainer (yes!) except it was broken. So much for the gym. I had about two hours to wait until Joan rescued me so I checked email and played wordscraper in the internet room. Didn’t pay for it but found out today when I wanted to go back that only airline employees get it free. Joan finally rescued me and we went out for lunch/dinner. What a delightful woman Joan is. Beautiful books. She writes about science and astronomy and all sorts of things that I could never write about. Our lunch started at about 2 and by 5:30 the waitress was giving us dirty looks. We continued our conversation in the car. Joan and I discovered that we are sisters in suffering. She is the only person I’ve ever found who cannot eat raw broccoli just like me. She has the same bizarrely violent reaction to it.

I went to bed really early because I was being picked up first thing in the morning.