Cash Only

Today I was planning on meeting a longtime friend and her daughter out at Pembina River where we were to have a lovely picnic lunch and then go tubing on the river. Sounds like a fantastic way to spend the day, right?

My day started to go wrong the minute I left.

First we went to the closest ESSO Gas station for Coffee and gas. I waited in line in the drive thru, ordered my bagel, donuts and coffee, got to the window and handed over my VISA. The guy hands me my coffee, looks at the visa and says "oh, we don't take Visa." I am like, "but that's all I have" he kind of shrugs. I am like "how can you not take Visa, that is the stupidest thing I ever heard!" and shoved the coffee back in his hand, grabbed my card, and drove off. So frustrating! So I had no coffee and the kids had no donuts. I got gas and started the 1.5 hour drive to the river. 15 minutes in I realized I forgot towels. Lovely. We are going to play in a freezing cold river with no towels.

So we finally get to the river, meet my friend, she had extra towels! We let the kids wade in the river and play around for an hour and ate our sandwiches etc, then made our way back up to the town to the tube rental place. We then stood in line for an hour to find out that:

1. They took Cash Only. (replay coffee catastrophe) so everyone offered to chip in so the kids and I could still rent a tube and hope they all had enough left over.
2. The next shuttle bus to the drop point on the river wasn't for another 2.5 hours and we had to wait there with our tubes for them to hold our spot. 2.5 hours with 3 kids in the burning hot 30 degree sun with nothing to do, yep sounds fun.
3. They were out of tubes and couldn't guarantee they would have enough back in time for our shuttle and wouldn't reserve the next ones for us. We either had to stand there waiting for people to come back off the river or walk away and risk there not being any.

My friend stayed with her daughter to wait for a tube. I decided it wasn't worth waiting 2.5 hours with no guarantee that we would even get a tube in time for the last shuttle bus and not knowing if everyone would have enough money to cover me. So the kids and I decided to come back home.

I felt bad that the kids fun day was ruined so I thought we would stop at the ice cream shack close to home for some gourmet ice cream. So we get there... Guess what!?!?! CASH ONLY! Argh! Who actually carries cash these days anyhow? lol. So we went to Dairy Queen and got blizzards. Then we came home and I made the kids help me wash my car. It's funny how it is work to me, but when you hand a couple of kids a big bucket of soapy water and a cloth and let them climb all over your car in their swimsuits it's a load of fun!!! lol.

Then we ordered pizza for dinner (they took visa!) and after I took them to the new playground by our house and I read my book while they played. A perfect ending to a pretty disappointing day I would say!

But seriously! I never carry cash! And usually it isn't a problem. It was just bizarre to me today that everything I wanted to do was cash only. argh!!!