River Valley Run and Car Shopping Again (July 9, 2023)

Jason was up early and out the door for his run.

He's been doing 10k each day - good for him!

I was tired and was going to just have a bit of a sleep in but then Jason sent me this picture from his run of the flowers outside of the Muttart Conservatory and I felt like I wanted to get out early and enjoy the day as well.

So I got up, got ready and headed out for a run.

I crossed over the Walter Dale Bridge and started towards the pedestrian bridge that's just a bit further down and at about 2k in, I had to use the washroom.

So I had to stop running and I walked around looking for a bathroom.

It is so frustrating when that happens, especially when I'm not familiar with the area and I have to walk all over creation just looking for a washroom.

I finally did find one though - what a relief.

Then I ran another 3k or so just to get 5k in total.

The river was looking so calm this morning (I wish it was a different color, the brown looks kind of dirty).

It's still a pretty area though.

I'm so glad I got up and got out for a run - it felt great.

Now I just had to walk up the giant, steep hill back to the hotel - that's a workout in itself!

My first 2k I got in before the bathroom emergency.

My exercise details.

My average pace and splits.

Then another 3k after taking care of the bathroom emergency.

The exercise details.

The average pace and splits.

After my run, I met Jason at the pool at the hotel - we swam a bit and went in the hot tub before we got ready and checked out.

Then we just left the car parked a the hotel and walked over to the Rosewood Cafe for breakfast.

The had this delicious looking strawberry rhubarb danish so I had to have one of those.

Jason and I shared it and they said our food was going to be about 20 minutes so we had dessert first.

My handsome honey - he got this very light mint green tshirt yesterday and I think the color looks great on him.

Moi.

I don't think our food took as long as they told us it would.

I got the chicken sausage burrito with the side kale salad.

I wasn't crazy about the chicken sausage in the burrito so I only ate half (I took the other half with me and threw it away, I didn't want to leave it on my plate and make them feel bad).

I'd had the kale salad last time and I loved it - love it this time too - it is so good.

I could have had only that and I would have been perfectly satisfied.

Jason had a breakfast bowl - it had their crispy fried, potatoes, eggs and lots of cut up bacon.

It was really delicious as well.

After we ate, we drove over and parked at Muttart Conservatory and Jason showed me the trails he found this morning on his run.

It takes you over this pedestrian bridge that has a good view of the downtown.

This is looking back over at the bridge after we crossed it - it is a pretty bridge.

They have done a lot of work over on this side, there are paths and plants.

There are these buildings with the Asian architecture.

It's very pretty.

I saw the biggest dandelion ever and it was so pretty.

There was a rose garden over there as well.

A couple of them actually with different colors.

This was the red one.

Then there was a white one.

These were a pinky color although it looks red in the picture.

There, you can see the pink better.

Back at Muttart they had some pretty black eyed susan's.

I just love daisies and black eyed susan's are very similar.

They had big giant planters.

This is the courtyard area - what a pretty place to have a bite to eat or a drink.

We were going to get a cold drink but the line up at the cafe was really long and not moving very fast.

This is one of the giant pots Jason had sent me a picture of earlier.

So pretty.

That same angle with one of the pyramid shaped buildings of Muttart in behind.

It was in a nice residential area so we went for a walk around and one of the homes had these nice sculptured horses out front.

I love them.

This cool sail boat was on display on the street as well.

And Jason noticed this little caterpillar crossing the street.

Look at his little face!

We were thirsty so we went to check out The Lot and got drinks and ice creams at the Pink Shack.

We've been seeing posts about The Lot lately and have wanted to check it out.

It has a couple food trucks in an area together along with some tables to eat at.

There is also a corn hole game set up there which Jason and I played while we were waiting for our ice cream - the girl was working in slow motion.

I got a scoop of Cookie Beast and it was good.

I also got a loaded pink lemonade - it had berries and lemon slices, boba pearls and jellied coconut - it was really good.

Then we headed over to the Nissan dealership in Leduc.

Jason has been talking to the guy over there and he promised he had a blue qashqai over there and he would give us the same price as the other dealer.

I don't want to continue paying for a rental so we figured we might as well go with it.

As much as I liked the guys at Northside Nissan - they couldn't give me a definate date of when they could get me a car and I just can't wait indefinately.

When we got to the lot, we saw the blue qashqai right away and it had a sold sign in it with Jason's name on it.- ha ha.

I really liked the blue color, maybe better than the red but it had a white interior.

I liked that but I was also worried - kids are hard on cars and I knew it would be impossible to keep clean.

We did take it for a test drive an we liked it.

But then we got talking and looking at some of the other models there and decided to ask what the difference in price of the Rogue would be.

There are several different models, the Platinum is 10,000 more and I didn't want to spend that much more but he said he did have on SV model in a champagne color that was only 5000 more so we decided to take it for a spin.

We loved it.

It was way roomier, had a dark interior but the think that bumped it over the edge for us was the electric seats.

The Qashqai has manual seats which isn't that big of a deal and we could have lived with it but you can only move them forward and back.

The electric seats go up and down too - Jason is quite tall so that makes a big difference to him so we got them to do up the numbers for us on the Rogue.

It wouldn't be my first choice for a color but I don't hate it and the numbers worked so we decided to go with it.

Plus it's here so no waiting.

I can't get the insurance and registration done today so we'll need to come back and pick it up.

We want to come on Tuesday so they are going to try to get the hitch and block heater that we want installed by then for us.

We saw this Pathfinder in the dealership that Jason quite liked too- it is a fancy looking vehicle and wasn't as expensive as I thought it would be.

Still more than I want to spend though.

The finance guy was busy so we left and headed over to Habanero's to get something to eat.

It was almost 5 and we still hadn't gotten our food so Jason stayed there and I headed back to the dealer to finish up the paperwork side of things.

It ended up taking longer than I thought so I didn't make it back to the restaurante - I just called Jason and got him to pack up my food and he walked back over and met me.

He gat the enchilada's and he said they were really good.

I got a quesadilla which I ate in the car once we headed back home.

It was really good.

I'm so glad the car thing is almost wrapped up and I don't want to car shop again for a very long time.

Pretty sunset on the way home.

Today was mom's birthday and I feel so bad - I totally forgot.

It's a big one too, she turned 70.

So we stopped at IGA and I bought her a bunch of treats then I'll have everyone over later this week for supper.

I also tried to think of something I could get her that she really wants and all I could think of was possibly a little dog.

So I discussed with Jason and if we can find an older, trained dog for adoption that doesn't bark very much then I think we are going to get her one.

If not, then I'll get her a new purse - not quite as great of a gift but something she also wants.

The zipper on my wallet broke so I got myself a new purse/wallet.

I usually just get the same kind but the zipper barely lasted that long this time so I decided to change it up.

This one has slots for all my cards plus it can hold my phone so I really like it.

That's all for today, until next time, be happy!