Edmonton 2013

Had a great time on my trip back to Edmonton this past week. Fortunately the flight through Houston was uneventful. My friends Joe and Alexa were nice enough to let me stay with them and all I had to do was remember how to get around the city.

Most of the trip was spent visiting with the parents and making sure I got to dim sum several times over the week. It was great. I’m pretty sure there’s been some serious dim sum inflation going on though, because some of what I had was a lot larger than I remember them being when I was a kid.

Spent some time rummaging around in the basement of mom and dad’s place to remind myself of what I still have stored there. One of these days I’ll have to ship some of that stuff back to Charleston.

Started off the week with a stop at Boston Pizza with Joe and Alexa once I managed to find my way from the airport to St. Albert. Mmmm, Great White North. Then I went with Joe and Tom to their favourite gun shop on Saturday, where I got to lay hands on a monster of a 50 calibre rifle.

That was kinda cool.

Met up with friends at some new-to-me places for wings and beers. Went to Hudson’s, Original Joe’s, Average Joe’s, Brewsters, and Old Spaghetti Factory. Always a good time getting back together with friends. Realized that “pints” served in Edmonton are bigger than “pints” I get around here. I was drinking a pint of my usual Trad, and thinking to myself “this glass sure seems a lot bigger than the ones I get in Charleston”. Turns out that they are.

Brought my HT with me and had it doing the APRS thing while I was out there. Nice to hear a fair amount of activity on the VE6HM repeaters.

Edmonton’s at a much higher altitude than Charleston is!

Every time I go back home, the amount of change, new construction and growth always surprises me. There was even more construction and spreading out of Edmonton since my last visit. I suppose if I went back a little more often than every three years, it might not be as much of a surprise.

Made a trip out to the U of A and wandered around the campus a bit. Last time I was there the new science building was just about finished. It’s a pretty nice building. Big open spaces, high ceilings, lots of outside light. More new buildings on campus, especially around the U of A Hospital.

There wasn’t a whole lot of touring around the city like I would normally do, and I didn’t take nearly as many pictures as I did last time.

Thursday afternoon I got an email telling me my Friday morning flight from Edmonton to Newark was cancelled and that I was rebooked to head out the next day, Saturday morning. Inconvenient but hey, bonus Edmonton day! Fortunately except for the cancellation, the trip back to Charleston was uneventful.