WHO SAYS AN RV TRIP WITH A MOM IN TOW CAN'T BE FUN?

A year after our first RV trip with Sadie the cat, we decided to travel up through Alberta, Canada, and then back down through the Canadian Rockies. So in mid-May we rented a 34-foot motorhome and invited hubby’s mom along with us. The cat stayed home this time with a house sitter.

First, we headed for Edmonton and THE MALL. This was (and may still be) the largest mall in the world and I was looking forward to seeing every store in it. However, to do so I would have to ditch Mom, but I was sure she wouldn’t mind being left to wander and shop at her leisure. Instead, she freaked out when she saw how huge it was, so together we managed to see as much as three full days and her stopping to touch every item in every store would allow.

My shopping style is to walk into a store, give a quick glance around, and I’m out of there if I don’t see what I’m looking for. I had shopping down to a science and I was specifically looking for some dishes for our new (but as yet un-purchased) motorhome.

Mom likes bargains, and there were no bargains in the Edmonton Mall. No bargains meant it was no fun for Mom and she constantly complained about the price of things. See why I was anxious to ditch her?

While my husband distracted his mother with a game of miniature golf (yes, you can do that inside the mall), I scooted off to a shop I had noticed before to buy my dishes, which have now survived 15 years of sliding around in a cabinet doing 60 miles an hour down the road.

You would have to see the Edmonton Mall to believe what all is located inside its walls! There is an underwater submarine and a dolphin park, an entire amusement park with a 13-story death drop, an ice rink, approximately 100 restaurants, more than 800 shops, a water park with a sandy beach and big waves, a casino and a hotel. Buses pull up outside and unload dozens of elderly ladies clutching their purses to their bosoms, all of whom rush inside to do whatever amuses them. Since winter weather is so extreme in Edmonton, this mall is the central gathering place for its citizens. If a huge snowstorm hits while they’re there, they can even spend the night in the hotel. It’s like a destination resort for almost anything a person wants to do.

Since I was on a working vacation gathering information for articles, I was able to get into some places that most tourists don’t, which gave Mom an opportunity to see a few things that truly amazed her. One was a tour of the Fantasy Hotel at one end of the mall. The rooms were each decorated as a theme room, and some were unbelievable. Mom was really stunned when she saw a bed in a buggy in one room, and in another, a bed in the back of a pickup. She couldn’t get over that. “Who would pay to sleep in the back of a truck?” she asked the hotel’s public relations person.

Mom was totally insulted when hubby and I decided we wanted a video made of the three of us as a rock ‘n’ roll band. We insisted, then marched her in and took our places behind the microphones and instruments like we knew what we were doing. Mom was on drums, I was on keyboard, and hubby was the lead singer with a guitar. Of course, none of us knew the words to the song, but it didn’t matter. Hubby and I decided to fake it. Mom was still mad, and the video of us pantomiming to “Old Time Rock ‘n’ Roll” shows her pounding the drum like it was tough piece of shoe leather she was trying to turn into minced meat. We still have that video somewhere to remind us of the time Mom played in a rock ‘n’ roll band. She was not amused that we also had copies made for her daughters!

While we frittered away our days in the mall, nights were spent at Shakers Acres RV Park a few miles away. While there, we met the McLeods—I’ve forgotten their first names. His grandfather settled Alberta and both McLeods knew a lot about the area, so they offered to show us around. One of the places we saw was an amazing natural history museum, and in the entry stood a grand statue of Mr. McLeod’s grandfather.

We had a wonderful afternoon touring the city of Edmonton, where we saw the glass pyramids of the arboretum (I think I recall that’s what they were) and many other fabulous sites that we might have missed had they not so graciously shown us around. Afterwards, we took them to dinner at that good old American standby, Olive Garden. Yep, they have them there, too! Predictable food, but always good.

Next time I’ll write about the Canadian Rockies portion of the trip and Mom’s encounter with a bear.