Coffee Anyone?

Day six. Day six of being 24. Hopefully I don't get my counting mixed up and have to start all over again. That would suck.

First I must move back to day 5 and a half, since I updated on day five yesterday. While I was with Andrew (I won the 2nd series of our summer long Croquet Tournament - we are now tied) we saw some pretty good action. We went to 2nd Cup and I got my traditional London Fog. You people really must try it. It's like the cadillac of tea's. Yum. And 2nd Cup makes a really good one. We got our beverages and then went for a walk by the River Valley.

It was spectacular, to say the least. Edmonton actually looked beautiful from our vantage point. We also went to see the river, which was flooding. We walked around a while, with all the other spectators, walked across a bridge and then walked waaaaaay back up this path to overlook the river-valley again, where we started.

This is when two police cars came flying at us, driving across to field. I thought to myself, "Oh no, someone has called the police on us!" Which is a really strange thing to think because we were in a public park, looking at the river valley, along with a couple other people. Still... momentary panic was over me.

The police slammed on their brakes (lights flashing), jumped out of their cars and ran to the edge of the cliff, where we were standing and started watching the river with us.

Wow... they were eager.

But they soon brought out the binoculors and started saying to each other, "Is that him there?" This is also when the police and fire rescue boats came flying down the river and about a billion other police blanketed the bridge and shore lines looking for a guy who had taken a plunge into the flooded river.

And this guy literally did take a plunge. He didn't get sucked in. He didn't slip and fall. He made a concious choice to go swimming in the river.

First of all, nobody goes swimming in the North Saskatchewan River ever. That's just gross. I have never heard of recreational swimming in the middle of the city's river. And it's a pretty big river, for those of you reading this who have never been here. Second of all, what would possess a guy to decide that it would be safe to swim in a flooding river that is flowing a gazillion times faster then usual, full of massive trees and debris all over it?

Of course the moment he stepping into the river, he was swept away and I'm quite sure he was regretting his rather lack of forsight infused decision right at that point. He was swept past our river boat called the Edmonton Queen and some people chucked him a life vest. He was able to put that on and the second task was to fish the guy out of the river.

From waaaay up on our vantage point we were able to hear the guy screaming for help. It was pretty crazy. We couldn't see him at all, but the police boat was working the shore and tons of cops were running back and forth trying to find him in the bushes. The police up with us explained that the problem was he could get sucked under all the debris at the side of the river bank, where the river takes a turn.

It took a while, but they found the guy and he made it out all safe and sound.

Hopefully he will think twice about swimming in a river that has flooded to the point that the city declared a state of emergency in the low lieing areas!

So that was part of day 5.5....

Now onto day six. A good day all around. In the evening I was able to hang out with Jon which was awesome. Awesome for two reasons... I had an evening open and I love hanging out with one of my best good friends, Jon. We had a grand time. Coffee at Starbucks and lots of conversation and then walking up and down Whyte Ave for more converstation.

I also happened to run into.... Cathy Boyd. Most of you don't know her, but that doesn't matter because the people who do know her will like this. I met her very cute little daughter and her fiancee. They are to be married on October 1st. They looked really good, full of peace and were talking a lot about how God has done an amazing work in this last while. The fiancee looked very much like he was totally in the presence of God, which was neat. I could see it all over the guy and noticed him before I noticed Cathy walking up to me! They took my phone number and have said they will call because the story must be told about what God has done for Cathy and her new family. And she made sure the special greetings go out to Bobbie. She made very sure of that!

So most of you won't know how much of a surprise that was for me tonight, but it was a good surprise to be sure.

I'm going to go to bed now.

Goodnight!