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Road Trip 2012: Getting to Edmonton

Posted on: 2012-06-02

In May 2012, my mother-in-law gave us her old car. The car was in Edmonton, but we live in Halifax. So we flew there and drove it all the way back home across the continent. We had great weather and I had a new camera.

This is part 1 of a series of blog posts about the trip. The pictures from the trip are all in Flickr - click on any pictures below to see them in full size.

Getting to Edmonton was the quick and easy part: Fly to Toronto, switch planes at Pearson, and then fly to Edmonton. It was overcast for a lot of the trip, but on the way out we had a great view of the airport, and then about half an hour later, Manitoulin Island, almost glowing in the bright blue waters of Lake Huron.

Clear view of YYZ on takeoff

Manitoulin Island(s) from the air

The clouds cleared again as we got into Alberta, but we had to dodge big stormclouds that were scattered around the plains.

Stormclouds over Alberta

There was a huge dark cloud over Edmonton as we approached, looking a bit like something from Independence Day but it cleared by the time we landed.

Ominous Raincloud over Edmonton

We spent several days visiting with family in Edmonton. My in-laws have an apartment with spectacular views of the valley, the "Leg", the University of Alberta, and even (with the 15x zoom in my new Canon SX230 HS camera) the West Edmonton Mall.

The High-Level Bridge in Edmonton

Alberta Legislature at Sunset

Extreme Zoom view of the West Edmonton Mall

We didn't go to the mall in this visit. We did spend some time walking around the city, and really enjoyed the Art Gallery of Alberta. I thought it was Frank Gehry design, but it turns out it's just done in a similar style.

Art Gallery of Alberta

I didn't take any pictures of the art, but I did get some shots of the very cool interior design.

Inside the Art Gallery of Alberta

Cafe in the Art Gallery of Alberta

They had a great exhibit of art from Banff, and another on Alberta women artists, as well as a collection of Modernist works from the National Gallery. I finally got to see Ballet Mechanique on the big screen, and one of the sculptures really reminded me of General Grievous. They also, of course, had an Andy Warhol portrait of Wayne Gretzky.

As we left, we saw a silhouette of a goose on top of the gallery. We weren't sure whether it was a real goose or part of some kind of art installation.

Art? Or just a goose?

... then it flew away.

That night we saw the first of many beautiful sunsets on our trip:

Sunset in Edmonton

Then on Sunday, May 6, we loaded up the new-for-us Toyota Corolla and headed out for two weeks on the road.

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