Did you know that? Well, there is! And apparently it’s a pretty well know one, too!

Upon reflection, and hindsight being 20-20 and all, we probably should have visited Edmonton’s main wonder on the Monday as opposed to the Sunday. Reason being is that on Monday everything in the mall is open from 10am to 9pm while on Sunday the bulk of our mall visit was eaten up by the World Water Park since it was only open from 11am to 6pm. Oh well! Live and learn. Live and learn.

We left our home at approximately 7:30am but really didn’t get out of Calgary till 8am. That worked out just perfectly since we got to the mall at 10:30am and the water park opened in a half hour. What follows is video and photographs taken from our short visit. Next time will be longer since we didn’t even put a dent in what they have there. It’s all expensive, of course, but there is a nice man at every mall entrance willing to take your credit card and debit card so as to max out the balance and empty out you account with out the effort of having to walk the miles and miles this place stretches out over. At least I think that was part of the mall service; I’d hate to think I was being scammed.

Like I stated above, we mostly stayed at the World Water Park. Here's proof:



Behind these two lovelies is one of the biggest wave pools that I have ever been to. We enjoyed mass amounts of body surfing, the waves being strong enough to even shift my slightly overweight bulk a certain distance.

We had arrived before the park even opened, so when we were allowed in, it wasn’t too busy. However, as the day went on there were more and more bodies jamming up the pool, and a large percentage of them had rented these personal inner tubes to sit and relax on. I personally wanted to swim under all these things with a pin. These people, young and old, really pi--! Really, uh, grinded my gears! When a body is in a current they can control them selves with these God given appendages that, er, God gave them. However, when you’re sitting your lazy bulk in an inner tube and a wave shifts you towards shore, you tend to have an amount of control equivalent to a jellyfish’s control over any piece of heavy machinery on a construction site. None! As a result, small children get run over by fat, useless people. Am I a little harsh? Maybe! But I’d love to give these people a little taste of what it’s like to fear drowning like some of the small children I saw pinned under those stupid yellow tubes. Kristen got run over by one, but instead of being pinned under water she suffered a small bump to the shoulder. She swam it off; what a soldier.

Which brings me to another beef: the World Water Park is understaffed. As a result, certain slides were open while others were not. This was because the lack of supervising staff meant that all of the slides couldn’t be manned. Meaning that there wasn’t enough lifeguards to ensure that small children weren’t almost drowned by lazy, inner-tube riding mouth-breathers. Does the park give anything pack to the consumer for patronizing their establishment? No! I guess they don’t need to with how busy it was, but I’m guessing that all the patrons had no idea they were going to be held up in lines and kept off of certain attractions due to staff shortages. It’s a guess, but I’d bet on being right. Regardless, the kids had fun:



The left one is of Rylee and Gabrielle. I did mention that we met the Porters at the park, didn't I? Whoa, I guess I didn’t. Well, we did! I guess I also need to mention that if you click on any photo you’ll be taken to my flickr page. Just click “all sizes” above the picture, and you’ll be treated to an extra large and very detailed version of that picture. Cool, eh? And just for the record, Rylee is not drowning in that picture. She is an “A” grade swimmer and loves the water. The right photo shows Kristen in all her professionalism when it comes to swimming. Just today she was made to swim 60 lengths in her lesson which is equivalent to a kilometer. She truly wants to be a junior lifeguard.

By the way, I faced one of my biggest fears at the World Water Park on Sunday. That being the fear of falling to my death on a very tall, very fast water slide. Now I know the following video may frighten some of my readers, and some of you with weak stomachs may, in fact, feel queasy if not outright nauseated after viewing it, but all I can say is, “I’m sorry!” I have let myself go in the past few months, so my slightly overweight physique combined with my pasty white skin minus the well tanned back of my neck and forearms makes for a chilling sight. Keeping that in mind, I ask you to view the video below:



In case it doesn’t come out clearly in audio, I am saying, “I kept my eyes open!” That was actually the second time I went down The Sky Screamer. The first time my heart was racing and for some odd reason my eyes glued shut as soon as I started to drop. Sitting on the ledge of that thing is like sitting on the ledge of a cliff except if you push yourself off the ledge of a cliff you will die. I will have to remind myself of this fact the next time I find myself sitting on the ledge of a cliff.

We decided to end our water park visit around 4:30pm so we could still have an hour in the mall after we changed. However, before we could even make it to the shopping levels, Gabrielle and Rylee were attracted to a interactive bungy trampoline exhibit. So while they were waiting to suit up, I snapped a couple of photos:



The orientation of these pictures actually works out pretty well as Kristen is up one level smiling down at Gabrielle and Rylee as they get ready for this fascinating feat of fun and flying. I also got a cute picture of Michelle and Catherine. Wow! You’d almost think they liked each other or something:



Catherine was eating something at the time, so that’s the best smile I could coax out of her. She said she almost choked holding that pose. I’m glad I only made her do it twice. Gabrielle and Rylee had to be affixed to two sets of bungies thus this rigging:



The ham poses were no extra charge for this ten dollars for ten minutes event. Want some video? I got some video! Here’s Gabby:



And here’s Rylee:



Afterwards, Rylee and I tooled around Galaxyland, West Ed’s indoor theme park, while Michelle and Kristen went shopping. Rylee was really timid when it came to waterslides and rides for some reason, which was also pointed out by many who were with us. It was very perplexing. Kristen, however, tried almost everything; she was a real trooper. I hope to get to the bottom of this Rylee mystery, but until them it will remain, er, a mystery still.

Two other photos we took:



The one on the left was pre-mall and is just about the coolest limousine I have ever seen. A hummer limo! Wow! Unfortunately when I was naming the photo file name I hit the “p” instead of the “o” so it is now called “hummer limp.” Many people may interpret that in a strange way. The photo on the right is of West Ed’s very own live flamingo display. Why’s that cool? ‘cause their flamingos. In a mall. Their pink. Kristen likes ‘em. Go away!

Which brings us to the section of my blog which I will entitle “STUPID SIGNS!” The first was a sign at the entrance to the bungy trampoline thingy:



Did you read it? Are you sure? I quote: If you are pregnant or have any other physical or medical problems.” Am I reading that right or did they just say that pregnancy was physical or medical problem. I could just see the reaction on the mother-to-be’s face when the doctor informs her that she is suffering from a medical problem know as pregnancy. But truly, this sign is genius compared to the sign on the back of one of those rental baby buggies that Shannon rented to push Gideon around:



Well thank you Captain Obvious! Holy crap! If a parent actually put their child in that bag they should be sterilized and their children should be set free to roam in the wild because they’d have a better chance at survival there than in the care of their mentally challenged guardians.

I regret not taking a picture of the sign that Michelle saw as we came back into Calgary. We were passing over a bridge that was the subject of some construction when Michelle read a sign stating, “Caution! Do not jump over hand rail.” Really? I shouldn’t jump over the handrail into the vehicle traffic traveling at 100+ kilometers an hour below? Why? The gene pool will thank all those who ignore such a sign.

On the way back to Calgary after bidding a fond farewell to the Porters, we stopped in Red Deer for gas, food and aluminum statues. Gas was $1.13/litre there, but when I stopped at the pump I noticed that regular was on for $1.17/litre. I just assumed it was one of those ridiculous promotions that those stations do where they jack up the price by a certain amount and then take it off at the till thus making the consumer believe they just got a deal. They must think that the average consumer is brain dead, but seeing as we rely on their fuel anyway, there’s nothing we can do about it. So I filled up the van and washed about a billion dead bugs off my windshield. As I was just finishing, a guy in a Shell Gas golf shirt came up to me and said hello. Then it dawned on me: I was at the full serve pump not the self serve. This kids confirmed as such, and I asked him if he was going to charge me full price. He seemed like he was going to, but I guilted him a little more by saying, “I just did your job for you!” He ended up taking off four bucks from the end price which actually got me down to $1.10/litre. It’s sad that I think that’s a deal now.

Before we left Red Deer, we had to check out these statues:





These were great! They’re made out of recycled aluminum which is melted down and poured into several different castings. You can visit Brian’s site at Metal Sculptures to see what else he’s made. A lot of wishes were fulfilled with this little visit:

1.Kristen got to ride a horse
2.Michelle got to ride a hippo
3.Rylee got to ham it up like her dad on a Rhyno
4.And seeing as I was so jealous that the kid’s got attacked by a bear on our Creston trip, I got to fulfill my wish likewise.

Well, that’s it for now. If you got to the end of this very lengthy entry then you will know that the secret word is “fatuous” and that you should bite your thumb the next time you see me if you want a sprinkle of pixie dust. Au revoir for now.