At Elk Island National Park we quickly learn from driving the few roads within the park that it is basically a nature conservancy for wildlife. There are lots of trails for hiking around several lakes, marsh lands with beaver ponds, open meadows for bird watching, a bison reserve, and a sandy beach at Lake Astotin for sunbathing and picnicking.
We covered all the roads within two hours during early dusk. Beaver huts were out in the marsh ponds.
Relocating for the weekend at Lamont RV Park gave us two full days and nights for camping in order to visit several highlight attractions such as the West Edmonton Mall, Alberta Legislative Building, Government House, and Royal Albert Museum,. We didn’t have to fight rush hour commute traffic which made driving in the big city a little easier for JR.
We miss the beautiful Canadian Rockies and its wildlife already. East of Jasper National Park it has become wide open green prairie farmland.
The West Edmonton Mall is the largest in North America being eight streets long. It is a mega super covered shopping mall and amusement park all combined into one amazing complex. There are 800 stores and 100 restaurants to chose from. There is a huge NHL ice skating rink, indoor small lake with submarines, golf course, indoor pool… the list of superlatives goes on. We left the mall with an additional wide angle lense for our Nikon camera and a new small pocket sized digital camera for Christa.
As luck has it we got a private tour of the Parliament Building as the first visitors on a Sunday morning.The Alberta Legislature Bldg. completed in 1913 is under two year reconstruction in preparation for its 2013 Centennial. We learned the province was named after Princess Alberta, the fourth daughter of Queen Elizabeth, whose husband was the premier and wanted to honor her. Their legislators do not have term limits and the provincial premier stays in office until he decides to retire.
The Government House was the residency of Lt. Governors until 1969. It was build to host government dignitaries. Queen Elizabeth II visited it in 2005. We visited the Royal Alberta Museum for natural history wildlife. Apparently when the queen visited in 2005 she designated the title ' Royal' to the name.
Our last stop tomorrow in Alberta will be at the Ukrainian Village community before crossing into the prairie grassland Province of Saskatchewan.
