We rolled into Alberta, Canada on Saturday morning June 11th with Ed and Kay following close behind....we are happy campers!. Kathy and I had practically used all of our groceries and supplies so we needed to find a Walmart or suitable substitute to shop. There was a Walmart Supercentre on the south side of Calgary and pretty much on our way to Banff.....first stop.
We tried to change some (US) dollars to Canadian back in Great Falls but were told we needed to wait until we got to Canada or closer to the border so we had none, which proved interesting on the Walmart trip. I assumed that we could shop with a credit card...this turned out to be correct........but we needed alot of groceries/supplies and needed a shopping cart to collect them...turns out in Canada (at least at that Walmart) you must put a $1.00 coin deposit (you guessed it, Canadian) into a slot in order to get a shopping cart. I went to customer service to see if they had a bank or money exchange....no luck, and also no other way to provide us a shopping cart.
Ed and Kay on the other hand, looking helpless in trying to get a cart....a local man felt sorry for them and put a coin in and told them they owed him a $1.00. I wasn't so lucky so I had to scour the parking lot to find a cart and trust me with a $1.00 deposit on them, there were not many unattended carts in the parking lot but I was lucky enough to find one......my lucky day!
After rounding up the groceries we proceeded to the checkout and the cashier asked if we wanted bags? I said "you mean paper or plastic?" She said no, if you want a Walmart bag (yes, the cheap plastic bags) they were a nickel each. "Say what", I giggled and said sure we do. So in addition to our groceries that seemed higher than usual (mainly because of the exchange rate), we got to pay for the bags to carry them home in. Can't make this stuff up ;-)
In the end - hats off to the Canadians....they have very little, if any, shopping carts all over the parking lot because when you return the cart you get your $1.00 back AND people don't likely fill the landfills with Walmart bags. Most people we observed seemed to bring their own bags.
Wonder how these good ideas would go over in hometown USA?
We left the Calgary Walmart and headed on to Banff National Park only to be greeted by rain and the temp dropped to 38 as we pulled in and set up camp.....checked the calendar and yep, it is 11 June. We will be here for a couple days and hopefully the weather will improve!
