L2O2

It is a beautiful drive to Drumheller. Huge blue sky and golden wheat fields. A lot of the farmers are in trouble this fall as the weather has been so bad only about half of the crops have been harvested. There are still lots of fields that have not been swathed (cut) and lots that have been swathed but are waiting to be combined (picked up). Let’s hope that the sun shines down on the west for two or three more weeks.

The first sight of the badlands is impressive. We stop and take some pictures of one of the many abandoned coal mines in this area. There are hoodoos with their caps of harder limestone protecting their softer sandstone supports and of course, dinosaur fossils.

There is no better place to see fossils and get a feeling for the work of paleontology than at the Royal Tyrell Museum just out of Drumheller, Alberta. Actually, there haven’t been any fossils discovered in the Drumheller area, most of the finds have been further south in the badlands, but who cares! This is a great place. There are dinosaur models, interpretation panels, and some really neat displays. We both particularly liked the Devonian Ocean display and the garden full of plants from around the world that existed in a prehistoric time and are still with us today. If there is one complaint, there is so much information that towards the end you begin to suffer from sensory overload, so plan on spending two days here if you ever visit!

It’s a short hop on the Bleriot Ferry (yes another one) over the Red Deer River to our campsite for the night. This is a really peaceful campsite beside the river and at this time of the year, it is all ours. There are geese flying overhead and mule deer in the field behind us as we enjoy a very relaxing campfire before the next days’ hustle and bustle of big city Calgary.