About mid-morning I received a phone call. A phone call from a friend from Florida who was at a youth conference in Edmonton called Acts for Christ (like GYC). He tried to persuade me and my friend Ellen to come. I could hear our housemate Alex(andra), who had flown there the day before, in the background laughing. I laughed too, but I was laughing off his preposterous idea! I was also trying not to laugh too hard at him on the phone, because there were visitors standing in front of my desk talking to our General Vice President and well, I wasn't looking very professional at all. Such is the problem when your friends know you are always there to answer the phone, because well, it's my job! So I laughed him off and told him all the reasons why it was literally, impossible to go. It was a 12 hour drive! Ellen was nearby and I told her about my conversation. And somehow the idea just wouldn't go away. So after I came up with all the reasons why we shouldn't go, and how it just wouldn't work out, and Ellen came up with all the reasons of why we should go because it would be so exciting and adventuresome, she won out in the end.
By this time it was about 11:30 am. For the next hour or so we scurried around making sure supervisors and students were in place to cover our jobs for that afternoon and Monday since the conference ending Sunday evening. And that was the beginning of a Friday that was NOT like every other Friday. We quickly ate, and quickly packed and and without any idea where we would stay or anything really, we quickly drove away.
Twelve hours in front of us was a looong ways and we figured we would get there around 1 or 1:30 am. And so we drove, and drove, and drove some more. It was nearing evening and we had filled up the gas tank not too long before. Next up was Jasper National Park. Majestic peaks topped in bright white snow jutted out against a quickly darkening sky. It was so beautiful. Ellen was driving and she was having a hard time keeping her eyes on the road because of the scenery. By the time we left the park the car was very low on gas. And then the gas light came on. Finally we found a gas station on the side of the road. We drove up to a pump and I hopped out to fill up. There was a sign over the pin pad saying it didn't work. That was ok, we would just try the next pump. But it too had a sign over the pin pad. This wasn't good, but that was ok, there were still other pumps. These didn't have signs over the pin pads. So I stuck my card in and followed all the instructions, and then just before telling me to fill up, it would just quit working. Frustrated, I tried the next pump, and the next. All to no avail. We would just have to drive to the next gas station. We searched for gas stations in my GPS and headed the next closest one. It was about 10 km away. It was a residential street and as we got closer and closer to the place where the little flag stood on my GPS map, I realized there was no gas station here. A large warehouse stood in the place where our gas station should have been. But that was ok, there was one more gas station on the GPS that was close by. It was another 8 or 10 km away. So off we headed. Farther and farther from the main highway we drove when we finally came to a very small community where the gas station was supposed to be. We drove past where the gas station should have been, then we turned around and drove past it again. But no gas station magically appeared, there was only houses and trailers. Oh dear. By this time it was about 11:30 PM and we had been driving with the gas light on for about 30 km and I did not know how long my car would run on empty. All the other gas stations listed on my GPS were 40-50 km away and neither of us thought we would make it. We did not want to get stranded on the highway and have to hitchhike for help. So we realized we would have to spend the night in this very small town. Though you could hardly call it a town, there wasn't even a store. So we parked the car next to a play ground area, laid our seats back and pulled out our sleeping bags. I was a bit apprehensive about this whole idea but Ellen assured me we had no other options. Finally I fell asleep. We both woke up fairly early but tried to go back to sleep. No one would be up this early on a Saturday morning and we planned to find someone to give us some fuel. After sleeping a bit longer, making ourselves look fairly presentable and eating some breakfast we headed out on a search, a search for an awake person. We drove down the first street. All the blinds were down and the houses dark. Maybe this would be harder than I'd thought. The second street didn't seem too promising either. And then Ellen spotted him. He was sitting, unsuspecting, on his couch in front of a large front window overlooking the street. We parked the car and jumped out, walked up to the door and knocked. The man who answered looked safe enough, though you never know these days, and after telling him our plight, he agreed to give us some fuel. We offered to pay him but he declined. He brought his gas can out to the car and began filling the tank. I offered to pay him again but he still refused. He said to help someone else out when they needed it. He filled the tank until the empty light went off and told us where a gas station was, about 4 km away. Much relieved, we thanked him profusely and headed off. We easily found the gas station and filled up, though it would have done us no good the night before since they had old fashion pumps and you had to pay inside. And we were off.
We arrived at the hotel conference center at about 9 AM and began looking around for someone familiar, either Alex or my aunt, uncle or cousin who were also attending Acts for Christ. We hoped to shower in one of their rooms. We wandered through the lobby area wondering what we would do if we couldn't find someone, when Alex magically appeared. She was pretty surprised to see us and we were very happy to see her! The rest of the conference was a real blessing. We attended great meetings, participated in the prayer room and caught up with friends we had not seen for awhile! Everything worked out so well. A friend let us stay in their hotel room, we got a free meal, and my aunt and uncle, who had to leave early, let us have their registration tickets so we could attend meetings on Sunday.
On Sunday afternoon we checked out the West Edmonton Mall. We couldn't leave Edmonton without visiting the largest shopping mall in North America and the fifth largest in the world. Although it wasn't actually as big as I would have expected it was pretty cool with world's largest indoor amusement park, ice skating rink, world's largest wave pool and a sea lion doing tricks in a part of the world's largest indoor lake. Before we left we rode on the Mindbender at the amusement park which is the world's largest indoor triple loop roller coaster. I tried so hard to scream from the sheer terror of it, but we were moving so fast my mouth dried out before I could get out a sound. It was lots of fun!
And then it was time for the 12 hour drive back home, complete with a speeding ticket for me. It just couldn't be helped really, the roads in Alberta are just sooo flat and straight.
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