May 28 to 31, 2010; Olds, Alberta

MAY 28 to 31, Friday to Monday; Olds Alta and back
We left around 10:30 am for Olds, Alberta. Hwy 1 was very quiet on the East bound lane. After a lunch break in Golden and a fuel stop in Canmore, we arrived in Olds around 8:30 p.m. local time (one hour ahead of ours). We are staying at Ken and Iva’s house so that Audrey will not know we are here. The retirement party is a surprise put on by her husband Marcel thus our hiding until Sunday when the party is. Ken and Iva were out but they had told us where the key was hiding so we let ourselves in. They arrived home around 11 p.m. and we visited catching up on news and finally went to bed around 1 a.m.
Saturday was spent getting the stuff for the party, running around getting booze, food and other things and in the mean time, hoping we wouldn’t run into Audrey. Iva cooked us a marvellous dinner then we visited for the rest of the evening and were in bed by 10 p.m.
Sunday, we got up early and went to the hall for the final preparation and decorations; we couldn’t do it yesterday as the hall was being used by another party so had to do everything this morning. Friends, John and Bernice also showed up to give us a hand and we had everything ready by 11 a.m. The party started at 2 p.m. when Marcel walked Audrey in the hall under the pretence of helping Ken and Iva doing a BBQ for the Elk’s hall. It was a TOTAL surprise! And we had a riot of a time! Of course Audrey had a marvellous time too! There were over 60 people present including Val and Audrey’s sister Dori and Dori’s daughter and husband and baby. A band played and since a lot of Marcel’s friends play music, everyone took a turn at playing or singing. Lots of good talented people were present and even Marcel played a few tunes. The whole thing rapped up around 9 p.m. Once everyone was gone, we cleaned up. Audrey was quite drunk to say the least and wasn’t much help! Hihihihihihi!
Monday, after saying goodbye to Iva and Ken, we met Marcel, Dori and Audrey at Smithy’s for breakfast. Audrey was hung over so we had fun at her expense. Too soon, it was time to say goodbye and hit the road. A lot of constructions were happening in the Park and near Golden. They are widening the highway to 4 lanes and at one point, we had to wait a half hour for some blasting. We finally got home at 8 p.m., unpacked and hit the sack early.
It was a very good and fun-filled week-end