Edmonton
Edmonton is a bit of a non-descript city as far as we can establish however there is one thing that makes it stand out. It is home to the largest shopping complex in the world. The West Edmonton Mall. On paper this thing sounds impressive with a lot of world’s biggest – biggest indoor lake, biggest indoor waterpark, biggest indoor amusement park and even a set of 4 submarines (more than the Canadian Navy). It is the size of 115 American Football fields with over 800 shops. So Overall this place is BIG.
Given all this we just had to visit. I must say it doesn’t quite live up to the hype. Yeah Its nice and a few things are a bit Wow but overall its really just a big shopping centre. We browsed the shops, looked at the attractions, watched an ice hockey match and grabbed a pizza. Given it was a wet and windy day not a bad way to spend it. If you were a teenager this place would be awesome.
I’ve always seen Edmonton as something of a watershed in our trip. This is where we stop moving predominantly West and start going mostly North. We’re almost at the start of the Alaska Highway. It feels like we have made real progress and so it should as we have driven over4000 milesacross Canada so only 1500 or so left until we reach Alaska. Things should start getting more remote now and Edmonton is our last major city for some time.
FromAtoB 
Have you actually established if you’re going to need The Beast? Are the roads going to be that bad? It sounds like a Ford Focus would have sufficed so far!!
hi Mate,
All the off-roading we’ve done so far amounts to some gravel roads and a few soggy campsites. This is the easy bit of the trip and we never expected bad roads in Canada. Alaska we intend to do some off-roading and mainland USA we’ve got some off-road tracks planned. The main thing is the roads when we get into Central and South America. Can be real bad. Its also not just the off road capability but also the ability to go for extended periods without returning to civilization that we’ve got – which is over and above a normal camper.
Don’t forget that we’re living in this thing – it would be a trifle cramped in a Ford Focus !
Mark
And a Ford Focus is no way as cool…..