We're in Canada now eh! Day 3

We made it to Edmonton, Alberta. It's almost 10pm and the sun is still shining in the western sky as we look at it out the window of our 15th floor hotel room.

What a day. Two long 3 hour plus legs of great flying. It was raining and misty in Thief River Falls, Minnesota as the cab took us from our hotel to the local airport. We decided to head direct to Regina, Saskatchewan and clear customs into Canada then head west across the prairies to Edmonton. We launched IFR into a 600ft overcast but broke out on top at 4000ft to sunny skies with silky white clouds underneath. We talked to Minneapolis Center who handed us off to Winnepeg. We were going to be out of their radar coverage and communications for most of the flight so they gave us reporting points and frequencies to try at various times along the route. With no one to talk to and not much to look at, we cranked the Sirius radio to the Bruce Springsteen channel and checked the sports scores on ESPN News as we once again pushed into a headwind (although not quite as bad as yesterday).

The clouds soon gave way to a brilliant green landscape below as we passed over corn farms, wind farms, and oil fields in Manitoba and Saskatchewan. All of it flat, flat, flat.

Nearing Regina we set up for the RNAV Rway 31 approach and got vectored to final. The weather was pretty good but there was a misty haze that restricted forward visibility, hence the instrument approach. We taxied to Apron Two for our appointment with Canada Customs and Immigration. Two officers were there to meet us and were polite and professional and after a few questions and a look inside the airplane they stamped our passports and welcomed us to Canada.

We refueled and the Esso guy told us we could find a good lunch over in the airport main terminal. He was right. A burger for Chris and a BLT with Poutine for me.

We got a weather briefing and filed a flight plan for Edmonton. Chris flew while I worked on the navigation and boned up on the Canadian procedures for arrival into Edmonton. We also got to appreciate the beauty and diversity of the Canadian prairies and were in awe of how great it is to see all we did from a few thousand feet above it all at celebratory speed now in excess of 120kts. We landed at City Center Airport, right next to the downtown and with the help of the guy at the Shell AeroCenter (we like to spread the wealth) we found a great downtown hotel for $74/night. Thinking it would be good to eat something different to the midwest bar food we've been eating the last few days, we found a good inexpensive Japanese restaurant near the hotel. Edmonton looks and feels like a great city.

Initially we planned to stay just one night but decided we needed a rest day, so will have a no fly day tomorrow and explore the area a bit - most likely the famous Edmonton Mall.