Exploring Edmonton

This first thing I'm supposed to say on this post is that Marilyn DID NOT EAT all of that mac and cheese grilled cheese sandwich last night. She had half of it plus "the small half" of my burger. I, however, ate all of my large half of the burger and half of the grilled cheese. And a pint of beer...
We were up today at 6 a.m. by accident. Turns out the last people in our room wanted to get up that early and didn't reset the clock. I hate when that happens and will be checking clocks in all the other rooms we have on this trip. 
After we got up the second time, we headed off to the south side of Edmonton which is divided into north and south sections by the North Saskatchewan River. Whyte Avenue is one of the trendy areas which reminded us of Bloor West or maybe the Beaches in Toronto. We walked up and down the street and checked out assorted stores.

There were some cool sand sculptures in a parking lot. They had a music theme so we checked them out. 

Here are a few other things we saw on Whyte Street. The only graffiti we saw was the artistic kind. Not quite sure how they manage that. 

After that, we walked down to the river as there were supposed to be walking paths. We arrived to find massive construction and a large crowd of mothers with babies doing some kind of yoga. It looked quite odd and I didn't dare take a picture. We did walk along back up to the top of the river valley and got a great view of the downtown area.

After that, we drove back over another bridge and went to the downtown core of Edmonton. Our goal was to find some of the food trucks we'd seen on Eat Street. I know, we are food nerds, but we like it! The main one we wanted to try wasn't around but we did have some great pulled pork and a new taste sensation. It was from the Food Fighter truck whose driver previously worked at a diner in Toronto. His taste sensation was a sandwich with roasted figs and bacon! It was incredible and I'll be trying to recreate it at home.

We then walked around the downtown area for a while and just took in the sights. 

Here's the art gallery which was our favourite and looks like something Frank Gehry might have done.

When our parking ran out, we headed back to the other side of the river to visit the Muttart Conservatory. It's an amazing place composed of four glass pyramids, each housing plants from a different section of the world. It's somewhat like going into the different habitats at the Toronto Zoo but without the animals! 

Here are some of the plants that we saw. Marilyn is currently asleep as it's after 11:30 so I don't know any of the names! 

There are more, but this internet speed is killing me! I'm hoping against hope that it will be better tomorrow night in Dawson Creek. I could be dreaming but you never know. In any case I'll finish off with tonight's dinner. We were going to go downtown again but there was major construction on the route that was driving me and the gps crazy so we went to a local place called Joey. It's a BC chain and there are a couple in Toronto. It's kind of like Milestones and the food was very good. 
I had Sushi Steak. It was a dynamite roll combined with teppanyaki style steak. I'd order that again!

Marilyn had goat cheese, spinach ravioli with seared scallops, also really good. 

Dawson Creek, next stop.