Day 19 - Isn't this where... we came in?

We started the day off with a small breakfast (we've found it best to eat small for breakfast and lunch, to give us half a chance of finishing our evening meal), then checked out of our hotel in Edmonton, before walking about 50 yards to the gathering crowd of people lining the road ready for the procession at the start of the Capital Ex, Edmonton's annual 10 day summer festival.

As processions go, it was okay, similar to the procession at the start of the Calgary Stampede so many days ago (a lot of the same people and groups were in this procession too). It was initiated by a fly past from two of the jets from the Canadian Airforce (or maybe that was the Canadian Airforce, haha). The weather was good, and we topped up our "face and arms" tan, which is all we're getting this year (still got a pale, white belly, yum yum).

It took a couple of hours for the procession to pass, and then we got into H and drove for an hour or so to Vegreville to see the largest Easter Egg in the world. Actually this is a Ukrainian "pysanka", almost 26 feet long, and it was constructed to celebrate the centenary of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. It's a fantastic sight, but what I didn't realise, despite having seen many photographs of this structure, is that it actually moves in the wind, like a weather vane. In fact, by reaching up above my head and pushing hard, I could get it to move myself. Despite all the reading and research I did about Alberta before I came out here, this province still keeps throwing little surprises at me.

We ate our lunch in the sunshine in Vegreville, and then began the drive back to Calgary (about 260 miles, no big deal). Sandra was navigating because the sat nav kept wanting to take me down township roads that were mostly dirt tracks...

Me: "What's the number of the road between Vegreville and Camrose?"
Sandra: "38."
Me: "Are you sure?"
Sandra: "Yes, look."
Me: "Sandra... that's the number of miles between two locations."

What with that and the sat nav, it's a wonder we got to any of our destinations.

We stopped off at Tim Horton's just past Red Deer for coffee and a donut (our first and last Timmy's of the holiday!), then completed the last stretch of our enormous journey around Alberta with the Rockies appearing on our right, and Calgary pushing up out of the prairies as we approached the airport... where we promptly got lost trying to find our hotel (its location wasn't built into the sat nav). We drove round the airport twice, got stuck in the short term car park, then asked the guy on the car park exit if he knew where the Sandman Airport Hotel was. "It's huge, you can't miss it," he assured us. "I'm doing the best I can," I quipped.

It was getting on for 8pm by the time we'd checked into our final hotel. We emptied all our tat out of H and then took him back to the airport to drop him off at the National rental centre. Leaving that car behind hit me harder than I expected. He's been our companion for the last 16 days, and we've travelled almost 2700 miles with him (some of it in the right direction). It was quite awful getting a taxi back to the hotel ("no luggage?" "no, no luggage... this is the end of our holiday, not the start"), staring out at the Rockies in the distance, seeing Calgary city centre almost within touching distance, knowing it was all over bar the shouting.

And so we found ourselves in the Moxie's Classic Grill attached to the hotel, me eating Mexican food served by a chirpy, friendly girl, in an echo of our first meal in Canada almost three weeks ago, when we were jet-lagged and unsure of this country ("Canada Day? Oh, mostly we just party").

It's been a real experience. I was worried it was going to be a disaster. I was worried it was just going to be a box-ticking exercise, as we travelled around all the things I'd read about. I was worried Sandra wasn't going to enjoy it. But all of those worries have proved groundless. It's been an absolutely brilliant time, and I wouldn't change a single thing.

We fly back home tomorrow, so this is my last entry. Thanks for reading.

Jeff, get out here, Mr. Gonk is waiting for you to bring him home.

Happy trails.

This is Alberta, signing off.