Excited to be on our way to the badlands, we watched out the car window as the mountains got smaller and started to fade into the back ground.
Occasionally we would have to go through some tunnels in the mountain side. These tunnels were not like ones you may picture in your head. These had slated sides that allowed light to come through so that you could see where you were going. I imagine these tunnels are built to protect portions of the road from snow and avalanches in the winter time.
Along the way we stopped at a rest stop to gas up and take a break. The line ups for the bathrooms were very long but at least there was a Tim Hortons near by and a bench with some bear statues to look at while you waited.
While I waited for my brother to gas up the car, I noticed a crow scoping out the parking lot looking for what ever snack he could get a hold of.
Bingo! He scored a nice piece of banana from a melting sundae that someone had abandoned in the parking lot.
It wasn't long before we were back in the car and heading out over the Alberta prairies. If there is one thing you notice in the prairies, it's when a storm is heading right for you.
There was some impressive lightning to be seen with this incoming storm but I wasn't able to get any pictures of it.
The turquoise colour of the sky and prairie grasses are very pretty in the rain. We didn't get rained on all that much since we stayed ahead of the storm mostly.
As we got closer to Drumheller the scenery started to change from flat prairie fields to having more trees and some hilly terrain.
It took a few moments to realize that those hills were actually my first look at hoodoos. I thought these were pretty impressive. Little did I know that the next day I would see some that were even more impressive than these.
It was early evening, maybe about 5 pm, when we arrived at the The Royal Tyrrell Museum in Drumheller. We weren't sure we were even going to be able to come here because on one of our pit stops, one of "the locals" had told us that it would be closed by the time we got there. Luckily we looked it up online before driving and found out that it was actually open until 9 pm so we had a few hours to spend here before it closed for the day.
Before we headed inside we stopped to eat a picnic lunch at the tables outside the building. All along the edge of the picnic area was tall grasses and shrubs. The closer you got to the grasses, the more you would hear a loud chirping sound. I peered into the grass to see if I could locate what was making the sound. A bird perhaps?
Then I saw it.... a prairie dog. Then I heard another one and another one. They were calling to each other, warning of impending danger,
I don't know if the danger they were worried about was me, my dog or the flock of large birds circling above. Or maybe all three.
After eating a quick lunch my mother stayed with the dog at the RV while the rest of us went in to the museum. The walkway up to the museum was lined with a number of dinosaur statues. There were some really cute looking baby dinosaurs too.
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As nice as the dinosaur statues were on the outside of the building, they were only the tip of the iceberg when it came to what was inside the building. Inside the displays and lighting and backgrounds that put the finishing touches to the scenes making them that much more realistic looking.
Some of the displays were so realistic looking that you could hardly believe that they weren't real.
Naturally there displays of actual fossils as well. There was so much information here. I had thought that we would only be here for maybe an hour or so but there were so many floors and so many displays including a room with live plants and some amphibians and other displays with insects and fish and other critters. We spent about 3 hours or more here.
One of the sections that I found to be impressive was called Lord Of The Lands.
In this section the dinosaur bones were frames in elegant frames and the lighting was set to look like a high society gallery of some sort.
I was pleased to see that they had even set up displays so that the blind could still enjoy coming here to visit. Under many of the displays were little plaques with titles in braille as well as raised etchings of the shapes of the dinosaur bones so that they would be able to feel what the dinosaur bones would look like.
By the time we were finished touring the museum it was dark outside and the rain had started up again. We decided that we would stay in a hotel in Drumheller for the night.
We chose an Econo Lodge to stay in and had dinner at a nice little pub called "the Vintage" All around town you could see statues of dinosaurs on almost every street corner. There was a huge statue that you could climb up inside of and stand inside it's mouth, but we never stopped to do that on this trip. The whole town had a dinosaur theme happening there.
In the morning we had breakfast at a great little cafe across the street from the Econo Lodge. The food, atmosphere and service was fantastic.
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It was a great way to start the morning before we headed off to our next destination... Dinosaur Provincial Park.
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