Tuesday, May 15, 2012

May 15 – To Elk Island National Park, Alberta


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Not much to report today. The Yellowhead Highway is your basic 4 lane divided highway. Unlike the smaller highways we have been on it bypasses most of the towns.

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One things we did notice along one section was that everywhere there was or was once water is surrounded by what looks like salt, even this large lake.

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We had no idea what is was but it looked like snow from a distance.

When we got to the park everything was closed, entrance kiosk, visitors center, even the campground check-in booth was out at lunch. We went and parked the RV in the spot we had booked for tomorrow. When I went back, after lunch, it turns out someone had booked the spot for tonight so we got another spot just down what is essentially a parking lot.

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This is the RV only area. The tenting area has the more traditional campsites. This place is not really meant for big RVs. According to the brochure we are actually supposed to park end in. If we did we would block the whole road.

Amazingly our Bell internet stick can connect here. I had thought we would be cut off (the horror) for our stay. This will also the first time we have tried to go several days just on the batteries and solar panels.

I even got out my compass and managed to park such that the dish could see the satellites through this gap in the trees. It’s a guy thing!

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After setup we went on a short walk on a trail with a bunch of interpretive signs. The place sure is empty.

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Even the beach is freshly plowed with only a few human and animal prints on it.

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Trying out the zoom on Jennie’s new camera (35x).

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An old restored pioneer building.

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Rooftop vents.

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After dinner last night I took a walk down to the beach to watch the sunset. Very peaceful.

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On the way from the RV I went through the walk-in tenting area. It seemed a bit cozy to me.

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Initially I thought it might be a group site but some of the tables had reserved labels meaning each was an individual site.

The forecast for the next few days looks OK so we just will do some short hikes to get back into the swing of things but mainly just relax.

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