Our Trip to Banff (Part 1)- Edmonton

We got up bright and early in Richmond Hill, made our way to the airport, where we arrived in Edmonton around noon on July 19. Yay! It was my very first trip to Alberta and I would pick up one more new province before the end of the trip, but I get ahead of myself. Our game plan on the first day was to make our way to a hotel on the western outskirts of Edmonton, which would put us right on Highway 16, so we could head off to Jasper National Park first thing the next day. In the meantime, we planned to explore a couple of attractions in Edmonton.

We started by heading north of the city to "Jurrasic Forest", a new Edmonton attraction featuring animatronic dinosaurs set up along two short hiking trails. John had his heart set on doing something dinosaur-y while we were in Alberta and being that it was on-route this seemed like a fun place to check out.

The park was actually a lot cooler than I had first surmised. It is clearly designed for dinosaur-crazed kids (big and small), but the animatronic dinosaurs were well done and were set off by sensors triggered by people that were walking down the paths. It was surprisingly atmospheric to come around corners on the trails and see huge dinosaurs moving in the distance. The trails were pretty, too, with lots of flowers and sign-posts giving information about the dinosaurs and the wildlife in the park.

The day was gorgeous and warm, too, something we were to learn in the mountains we could never take for granted. The park was crazy busy with LOUD kids and it seems to be a popular destination for summer day camps. It was fun and a great way to start what was to be five days packed full of attractions.

We headed to our hotel after that and continued to get the lay of the land. For one thing I was surprised by the weird traffic lights in Alberta- they're sideways! In Ontario traffic lights are vertical, with the three lights on top of each other. In Alberta, the three lights are horizontal, side by side. John tells me he's seen them like that in Quebec, too, but I haven't been to Quebec since I was quite young, so I don't remember. We had a quick bite to eat and then headed for the West Edmonton Mall.

West Edmonton Mall, of course, is advertised as "the biggest mall in the world", so we had to go and take a peek. In general, though, we were kind of underwhelmed by the experience. As others had warned me the largest mall in the world is still essentially... a mall. Yes, it had a swimming pool and an ice rink, big movie theatres, an amusement park and an aquarium and stage for sea lion performances (the last two which were closed, because it was evening), but mostly it was three levels of stores not all that different from what we already knew in Toronto.

That's John in Galaxyworld, the large amusement park in the mall. Anyway, we're glad we went and can say, "been there, done that". We ate a couple of yummy green tea puff pastries and then headed back to our hotel. The next day would be the longest drive of our trip and our first look at the mountains!!

You can find the rest of my Edmonton photos here: Edmonton You can click on any of the photos above to see them larger.

Next: Jasper National Park!