Beer Parlour Project - BP 27.0 - Edgerton Oasis Hotel

Our visit to the Prairie Oasis Hotel in Edgerton, Alberta was pre-arranged.  Chris had set this all up in advance, so the owner was expecting us.

The local high school graduation ceremony was taking place at a nearby hall when we arrived, and main street was full of vehicles.  In between the ceremony and dinner and again at another break in the festivities, waves of people came into the tavern.  We managed to photograph and visit with some of them.  Sadly it was only Chris and I on this occasion and with two of us it was just impossible to keep up with all the people.  They came in a huge wave, stayed for half an hour or so, and then left to attend some other part of the event.  This happened a couple of times during the afternoon, but we still missed out on some opportunities.

Wanda, the owner of the hotel was a very gracious host.  She has owned the place for over 20 years.  This is much longer than most of the hotels that we have visited, as the turnover in ownership seems to take place on a very regular basis.  I think perhaps when the pitfalls of ownership and the expense of operation become evident, some decide it is time to move on.  Wanda took as for a tour through every part of the hotel.  She has personal living quarters upstairs that are under renovation, and we even got a quick glimpse of those.

Wanda also operates the restaurant attached to the hotel, as well as a beauty salon.  She is a real go getter and is obviously very proud of what she has accomplished... as she should be.  Like the night before in Coleville, she insisted on covering our tab.  We had a couple of beers each, as well as Wanda's delicious home made burger.  This is a trend that we really don't want to continue, despite the great intentions of the owners.  This time around we made a donation to the local charity event that Wanda sponsors, in lieu of paying our bill.

It was a great visit and we were at the hotel from 3:00 until after dark.  We had a lot of fun and I'm sure I came away with a couple of great photographs.... and some regrets for opportunities missed.  We made our way back to Macklin after we had said our goodbyes and packed up all of our gear.  As usual, we felt a great sense of satisfaction as well as some fatigue, at the wrap up of this outing, number 27 in our tour.