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Dinosaurs in Drumheller

Friday, July 15th – Calgary to Drumheller to Calgary - Day 154 

When we were in Colorado Aisling was asking over and over to go to Dinosaur National Park. To do so would have required an extra eight hours of driving, we said no, but we promised we would go to Drumheller in Alberta. Any day where you get to see Dinosaur skeletons is pretty cool. 

 The drive to Drumheller was an hour and a half, you are driving through gently rolling hills and then descend into the badlands of Alberta. We took a picture with the Drumheller sign before heading to the visitor centre, home to the largest dinosaur. A metal monstrosity that lets you walk up to a viewpoint in its mouth. We decided not to pay to go up. We got some good advice on what to see besides the crown jewel, the Royal Tyrell Museum, home to dinosaur bones. We were excited to meet up with Leo and David who decided to come. 


The Royal Tyrell Museum is incredible for the sheer number of dinosaur bones they have. They have so many specimens on display from all eras of the past. Western Canada provides an incredible fossil record with the Burgess Shale in the Rockies provides a glimpse of the earliest life over 500 million years ago, Drumheller provides a glimpse of the cretaceous period, the glaciers left the Cypress Hills formation alone providing many more recent fossils. We walked through a history of Earth as we went through the museum. A full-sized T-Rex. imbedded in rock was incredible. The kids loved the dinosaurs but were impatient with their parents reading. It was fun chatting with Leo and David while we walked through. 

 We finally came to the end of the exhibits; we took a quick hike up to a viewpoint while the kids played on the playground. It was very warm out. We said goodbye to Leo and David and headed for a ghost town named Wayne. To get there we needed to cross eleven bridges, counting each one, as we followed a river towards an old mining town. The Last Chance Salon was one of the few buildings around. We stopped and looked, but decided we had a few more chances left. 


 Next stop was the Hoodoos trail, a metal walkway that takes you around a grouping of hoodoos, columns with flat hats on top. Beyond the grouping was a hill to climb up with water slowly forming mounds of rock into more hoodoos. John kept going up and up. It was a fun climb chasing him. On our way out of Drumheller, we stopped at one last viewpoint, Horseshoe Canyon to have one last glimpse of the badlands. 


We were hungry as we travelled back to Calgary, we stopped at the Irricana Family Restaurant for amazing pizza and delicious chow mein. We finished the drive back to Calgary to hang out with Don for the night.

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