Oh Canada!

After our visits with our Minnesota and South Dakota relatives, we drove from Iroquois, SD to Minot, ND on August 8; crossed into Regina Province at Portal on Sunday.   Stayed Sunday night at the Regina King's Acres and Monday night in Saskatoon, SA.   Tuesday, August 8 we arrived at the Camrose, Alberta campground.   Since then we've been busy visiting with Jack's cousins in the area.   If I don't gain 10 pounds, it will be a miracle!    We'll be here until Tuesday, August 25 when we'll head to the Jasper area for several days.

The harvest is beginning, so will likely not see much of the Burkards the rest of the time we're here.
Last Sunday was miserable -- cold (50's) and windy and cloudy.   We had a free morning and afternoon, so drove to the Ukranian Cultural Heritage Village, about 25 minutes east of Edmonton, AB.  We had heard so much about it, we decided to go see it, before our evening with Doug and Ann Burkard.   The Village is an open-air museum depicting early settlement in east central Alberta from 1892-1930.   There were many historic buildings, including Eastern Byzantine Rite churches, a blacksmith shop,a grain elevator, farmsteads, a sod house and schools.   There were also two stores, one tiny one in the country and a larger, general store in the town.   Most buildings had costumed interpreters who portray real people who once lived and worked in the buildings.  It was a fun time.   I will be adding pictures at a later time.

Today (Saturday August 22) we drove to Edmonton after breakfast and toured the Rutherford House, the Air Museum, and the big West Edmonton Mall.   In 1911 A.C.  Rutherford and his wife Mattie and their family moved into the mansion near the U of Alberta campus.  Mr. Rutherford was the first Premier of Alberta, and the founder of the University of Alberta.  A costumed docent took us through the house.   We thoroughly enjoyed her.   From there we went to the Air Museum to see the planes.   It was also interesting and we enjoyed our guide who explained the planes and livened up the museum with personal anecdotes about some of the planes and pilots.  

After lunch we visited the West Edmonton Mall, but didn't stay very long, as we wanted to be back in Camrose by 4:30.   The Mall is one of the most comprehensive indoor shoopping and entertainment complexes in the world (their words).It has more then 800 stores, 100 restaurants, the world's largest amusement park (admission charged), an ice rink, a swimming pool and a ropes course.  There were a lot of stores that are familiar to us:  i.e. Best Buy, Bed Bath and Beyond, Victoria's Secret, etc.   The Mall was packed with people.

My next entry will likely be pictures and look forward to blogging about the Jasper area.