Leduc Alberta, Home of the Norwalk Virus

Alex, Alvin, Charlie and I (and Alex's dog Micah) set out on Friday, August 27th to move Alex to Leduc, Alberta for her 8-month internship. Since I can't sit in a car for more than 5 hours, we took 3 days to get here. We stopped in Kamloops at a really cheap motel ($69/night....no relation). Then we went to Jasper and stayed in a large suite at a nice lodge. It had 3 hottubs and we took advantage of all of them. The next day we did a little sight-seeing. Drove up Mt. Edith and hiked to the glacier which was on a glacial lake. Unbelievable. I can totally cross that off my bucket list now.

We stopped at a hot springs next and once again took advantage of the sore muscles and nerve endings. Then onward to Leduc. We arrived Sunday around dinner time. Alex's basement suite is nice - fairly new and pretty clean. The living room is open to the upstairs, so there's not a lot of privacy but Alex and I rectified that by moving most of the living room furniture into the large kitchen.

Charlie and Alvin got up early Monday morning and Charlie dropped Alvin off at the airport then drove my car home - it only took him 12 hours - haha.

Alex and I had great plans for the week (I fly home next Tuesday). Get the apartment organized, figure out suppliers of raw dog food ingredients, shop for some necessities. Instead, we got a Norwalk virus on Monday night. That was brutal. The kind of brutal where you sit on the crapper with a bucket on your lap. Except that there were no buckets or even garbage cans in the whole suite. So we barfed into her brand new mixing bowls, then bleached the hell out of them and boiled them in oil.

Tuesday was a write-off. We were so sick I actually phoned Charlie and asked him to fly here to take the dog out to pee. I kid you not. Somehow Alex managed to crawl across the street to the park with her and she was a pretty good sport about it. We did let her destroy a dog toy to amuse herself for the day. By the afternoon we had stopped barfing, and just lay around watching True Blood-the first and second seasons. Wednesday we were a bit better, and could eat some bananas and a bit of toast. Unbelievably weak, however.

Thursday Alex had an all-day workshop an hour away with her Lay Support Team and Minister-Supervisor. I unpacked her kitchen boxes. Then we both collapsed and ate nothing for dinner.

On Friday we went out shopping, moved the furniture into the kitchen, went to a potluck meet-and-greet for her and her LST. Alex baked a delicious blueberry pie. So I guess we were better. She's younger and stronger than I. Even this morning I'm procrastinating going shopping again by sitting here on the computer for the first time in a week.

Leduc is, apart from the Norwalk, a nice place. A huge never-ending field with houses and shops on it. Big sky though - that's something you don't see in BC.

The house has a 2-car garage and Alex can use half of it for her car which is awesome. There's a big park across the street for Micah to run and play. And she's getting to know the two little dogs upstairs, even though the poodle-ish one keeps attacking her by striking out at her nose (death wish much!)

That's all for now - we're off to buy a vaccuum at the Bay with some wedding gift cards. The Albos had a Dyson "Animal" vaccuum on their registry so that's the order of the day.

Have a great Labour Day weekend everyone!