After a good planning session of our route to come, we departed towards Edmonton rather late in the morning. It was mostly a driving day and the canola fields gradually turned to bright yellow canola fields with scattered black oil and gas wells.

Towards the end of the day we visited the Alberta Visitor Information Center in Lloydminster where Jonathan, our competent and very nice associate, hooked us on the Ukrainian history and food in the area.

Our first stop was the “Cheesiry”, an artisan cheese making operation. Their boutique was now permanently closed, but they had an honour fridge in the barn where one could purchase cheese.

Unfortunately, after deciding what we wanted, we looked into the fridge and found it void of cheese, save for one small piece. There was, however, a fairly substantial amount of cold, hard, cash.

The next stop was Vegreville, the site of the world’s largest Ukrainian egg at 25.7 feet in length, constructed in 1975.

We were looking forward to having dinner at a Ukrainian restaurant that had advertised in the regional tourist information brochures, only to find it was closed and for sale. The city campground office was also already closed for the evening and while it had a mail slot for self-registration, there weren’t any forms available to actually register on. Walmart parking lot to the rescue!