Day 6:Enjoying Edmonton

After blasting through most of the communities in the Yukon & northern BC, we decided to slow down a bit and enjoy Edmonton, the capital city of Alberta. Wade's always hesitant regarding big cities and being thrust into the masses of humanity, but I thought it'd be a shame to just blow on through this city. The Milepost had lots to say about Edmonton & vivid photos of some the major attractions, so we thought we'd stop.

Edmonton is home to the West Edmonton Mall - the largest mall in North America with over 800 stores. We had no desire to wander around stores that we can find in the U.S., so we decided to visit the Muttart Conservatory. This attraction piqued our interest because it's composed of four glass pyramids that reminded me of the glass pyramid entrance outside of the Louvre in Paris. Each of the glass pyramids showcase plants from different biomes of the world. Temperate, Arid, and Tropical plants are on display year round. The fourth pyramid was called the "Feature" pyramid whose display changes around five times each year. During our visit several species of geraniums were on display.

If I had a budget that would allow, I'd love to remodel my home so that part of it housed a glass pyramid with spectacular plant displays such as the ones we saw here. They were absolutely gorgeous. I think the temperate pyramid was my favorite as not only was it visually appealing, but pleased the olfactory senses as well. I told Orion that I was going to move to Edmonton & buy the house that was for sale across the street (the conservatory is located in a nice residential area with access to a large green park & the city's bike trails) & visit every morning while I drink my coffee. He was like "Are you serious, mom? You're going to move here?!?" I assured him I was not - it was just a statement on how peaceful and nifty the conservatory was.

Since Edmonton also has one of the largest series of Urban parks in North America (according to the Milepost it's 22 times larger than New York's Central Park) & we'd brought our bicycles, we thought a bike ride throughout the park would be a nice way to get some long sought after exercise. We only biked for about 30 minutes (hunger was taking hold), but it was great. Much of the trail reminded me of the Coastal Trail in Anchorage. What I really enjoyed was how dedicated the city was to pedestrians and cyclists - in addition to vehicular bridges, there were several bridges over the Saskatchewan river dedicated solely to pedestrians and bicycles.

We ended our visit by having a very late lunch/early dinner at an English pub located in the Strathmore historic district. It had great food & was dedicated to football. Flags, jerseys, and scarves from the English Premiere League decorated the wall. It was too late to watch any WC matches (they were over earlier in the day), so instead we watched a rugby match between the U.S. and England. Wade had played rugby while in high school, so was able to explain the convoluted rules. Did you know when you score in rugby it's called a "try". I find this hilarious - calling it a 'try" instead of a "do". :0)

A quick visit into a shop to stimulate Edmonton's economy (the boys each purchased a leather bound sketch book & I found a fun "Hello Kitty" metal lunch box proclaiming my love of Nerds) we hit the road to head south to Calgary. Since we'd spent some time in Calgary in 2007 & have visited the Calgary Tower, I think our plan will be to camp & then head out. We've decided to continue east through Canada on the TransCanada highway #1 rather than pop down into the U.S. in Montana. So - we'll be able to add a couple of more Canada provinces to our list!

Reporting to you from TransCanada Highway #1 - Ciao & Happy Travels....

Mileage Begin: 108,039
Mileage End: 108,276
Total Miles Day 6:
Miles from home:
Tunes du Jour: Pink Floyd, Richard Shindell
Knitting Project: More of Kiama
Gas Total:
mpg: Total Cost:

Tags: Road Trip 2010, Edmonton, Muttart Conservatory

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