Dinosaur Provincial Park was something we were all excited to see. My parents had been there before many years ago and were excited to show it to us and we were just as excited to visit it. As my mother said, you are just driving along the flat prairies when all of a sudden the ground opens up and there is a giant gorge of hoo doos at your feet.
So many times along the way I sang the song from the movie Labyrinth in my head " You remind me of the babe. The babe with the power. The power of voodoo. Hoo Doo? You do! Remind me of the babe". .... OK, yes, I know....I am a bit weird. .
As we got nearer to Dinosaur Provincial Park we started to see signs pointing the way.
Even better than the signs though, were the painted dinosaur tracks on the road showing us the way each time we came to an intersection.
Finally the sign we were looking for came into view. We were here! Dinosaur Provincial Park!
We got out of the cramped car and out into a wide open prairie of grass. Off in the distance you could just make out the edge of the gorge of hoodoos.
And what a beautiful gorge it is. The hoodoos here are are beautiful to look at and far surpass the beauty of the ones in Drumheller.
Standing on the edge of the cliff and looking down at everything just took my breath away.
Way down below you could make out the tiny shapes of some people the size of ants that were walking the trails down below.
Next we headed over to the visitor center to get maps of the park and to use the much needed bathroom.
Inside the visitor center was a gift shop and a little mini museum area. I did n't realize that you were supposed to pay to get in to the museum section so I ended up wandering in for about a minute or so and taking a picture or two before my family told me what I had done. Ooopps! I got out again real quick. I had only gone a few steps inside but it looked like it might be worth while paying and going through on a future visit. We didn't end up doing that this trip though.
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Parked outside the visitor center was about 3 or 4 tour buses that you could take at certain times of the day.
Just along the edge of the parking lot there is a covered bench with a dinosaur sitting on the roof. It looked like it belonged there with the hilly hoodoos looming in the background. You could almost picture in your mind what it would have been like to see dinosaurs roaming around here so many years ago.
We headed on down to the park office to see about getting a campsite for the night. The office was a little unusual in that the registration office was just a little walk up window on the side of a building that contained a convenience store inside.
You could tell that there is not a lot of wood here for fires because it seems that they have to have their wood shipped in from other places.
We were crushed to find out that the park was completely booked. Once again we had come on a Friday with no reservations. So we decided that at least we would spend most of the day here and enjoy what we could of the trails and see the displays. First though, it was time for lunch and we sought out the picnic area. There were plenty of picnic tables to choose from.
We chose a spot right near the "Comfort Camping" section. This was a first for me. I have never seen a provincial park with "comfort camping "before.
I imagine comfort camping to be cabins or a cozy RV or something. But apparently comfort camping is sleeping in large canvas tents that are roughly 12 x 14 maybe and have a wood and shingled roof built above them. Naturally, they are located right beside the comfort station washrooms.
The only thing we were finding uncomfortable though were some teeny tiny mosquitoes. They were like little baby mosquitoes or something. Just because they were small didn't make them any less annoying though.
I figure they were so small because there wasn't a whole lot of habitat for them. Aside from a really muddy creek the only water that seemed to be available to them were only large puddles in the grass for them to hatch in or a bit of a wetland area over on the other side of the park that one of the trails ran through.
Aside from mosquitoes there were a couple other interesting insects such as this Box Elder beetle nymph.
And what ever insect may have been living in this deformed leaf at some point. There were a bunch of these deformed leaves all over the park. Of course I had to poke at one with a stick. There was nothing but dirt or dead vegetation inside.
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Naturally where there are insects you will find birds and there were plenty of those around too. The Northern Red Shafted Flicker was the bird most commonly seen that day .
While I waited for the others to finish eating I wandered over the bridge to the campsite area to get an idea of what it would have been like if we had been able to spend the night here.
It actually would have been quite nice. Despite the fact that there aren't a ton of trees, there were enough to keep that camp feeling and to feel that you aren't crowded in next to your neighbours. And if you were lucky enough to get one of the campsites along the edge of the park you were treated to a nice view of the hoodoos.
They had some neat fire pits that functioned as both a cooking fire pit and a regular fire pit. All you had to do was flip the grill over.
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There were plenty of washrooms near by that were clean and presentable. They weren't flush toilets but they did have plenty of safety bars for the elderly and disabled.
 Despite the muddy creek running through the park, there were plenty of taps with potable water to get drinking water from.  |  |
There was even a playground area for the kids. It was a little plain jane in colour but it seemed sufficient enough to keep the kids happy.
There was also an interesting looking cabin that you could see and read about for those interested in a little bit of history other than the history of dinosaurs.
The tiny cabin belonged to John Ware who was an African-American cowboy best remembered for his exceptional horsemanship skills and ability to train horses as well as for bringing the first cattle to southern Alberta in 1882, helping to create that province's important ranching industry.
Dinosaur Provincial Park has plenty of interesting things to do throughout the day if you are lucky enough to get a spot. There is everything from Guided Excavations, to Family theater programs, to lab programs , to Guided hikes and tour buses.
There is absolutely no removing or disturbing of fossils from the park since it is illegal to do so. I over heard one of the staff members tell a guest that about 80 percent of the park is off limits to the guests except by guided tours because the park is actually a preservation site.
There are different kinds of hikes at the park. You can either walk them or you can tour them in a vehicle. You can even take a bicycle through them and they provide a bike rack for you.
Since we did not have as much time as we would have liked any more, we decided to take one of the trails that you can drive your car through.
Being down in the hoodoos has a different feeling than being up above looking down on them. You can see the caves better and the different carved out shapes up close.
Even the colours are different when you are up close to them. Everywhere you look you see God's artwork.
There are two pavilions on the trail that house dinosaur bone displays. The interesting thing about one of them is that the bones inside are lying exactly where they were discovered, Instead of moving the bones to a museum they built the pavilion right over top of them so you can see exactly where and how they were found.
One thing you have to be careful of when you are walking is not to step on a cactus because they can be hidden in the grasses and some of them are able to puncture right through a shoe. I didn't even know Canada had cactus until I went on this trip. Signs within the park also warn of things like rattle snakes, black widow spiders and scorpions. Another thing I didn't know we had in Canada...scorpions! Apparently the black widows and scorpions mainly stay in the caves and under ground, but you still had to watch out for them. Kind of scary.
Since we had to continue on to a new campground, we sadly cut our visit to Dinosaur Park short. We made one more stop to the visitor center to stock up on souvenirs and then headed off to Saskatchewan's lovely Cypress Hills Provincial Park.
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