Bison in Elk Island

Tuesday, July 12th – Edmonton to Calgary, Alberta - Day 151

We woke up in Chuck's driveway. Charles wasn't feeling that well, so he was home from work for the day. It provided another chance for us to catch up. The kids were watching tv thanks to Nat's son, Mason. Mason wasn’t doing anything, so we brought him as a tour guide for Edmonton.

Loaded up we headed for the West Edmonton Mall. Mason guided us through Legoland, the pirate ship, the indoor waterpark (complete with wave pool and water slides), the amusement park, the movie theatre with larger-than-life statues, and we stopped to watch a girl's hockey tournament on the indoor ice rink. Very cool mall to wander through. Gen stepped away to do some shopping while we were looking around.

Next, we drove to Elk Island National Park. The visitor centre was open, and they provided us with books and dog tags. They had some cool skulls and furs you could examine at an outside booth. We were told that if we unhooked our trailer to drive through the park we would be charged with illegal camping. Very strange since we often detach our trailer at other parks.

We drove through the park and managed to find a single solitary Bison eating some grass. There is a herd in the park but we didn’t see any others. We then continued to Astotin Lake Recreation area. We walked the boardwalk along the waterfront and saw a beaver swimming along. The kids played on a play structure and had a snack before we got back in the car. On our way out of the park, we spotted three more Bison on the other side of the highway fence.

We dropped Mason off with Chuck at Chuck's son Nick's baseball game. We got to catch a few innings before the game ended. We needed to start moving to Calgary. After stopping to pick up supplies, we headed for another of Jo-Ce's cousins, brother of the previous cousins we stayed with, Don. Jo-Ce had arranged for us to stay in his driveway while we explored Calgary and went to the stampede. Three hours later, we arrived and set-up in his driveway.

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