The land before time

Today after an excellent breakfast service put on by Geoff's Aunt we were on our way to Drumheller. I have to say, I thought it would be closer by than it was, however it was worth the hour and a half trip. The town has really given itself over to the whole dinosaur mantra for tourism. No matter where you went in that little town there was a statue or a sign or some sort of glorification of some dinosaur or another, but it wasn't really tacky or anything.

It started off with a trip to the tourist information centre, which happens to have the worlds largest replica dinosaur!



'A Huge Tyrannosaurus ate our lawyer/well I suppose that proves/they really aren't all bad..."

 The friendly staff there gave us a good impression of what all there was to do in the Drumheller surrounding area. The first area we hit up was the Royal Tyrell Museum of Paleontology, given the Royal distinction when it was recognised as a world leader in Paleontological developments. The museum was as it was expected, full of really awesome dinosaur bones. However what really made the place interesting was their section that displayed fossils, said what they were, but also described where the fossil came from and how they got it to the museum, it really gave the exhibit a bit of personality. The museum also had an interesting section where you travelled through different Paleontological periods and saw fossils and recreations from those time periods.

That looked really, real, but you knew it couldn't be.

They also had a really impressive T-Rex fossil as the centrepiece of their newest exhibit that featured 'Their most treasured specimens'

Not so tough now that you're all bones eh? Well I'm pretty sure those bones could kill me if they all fell on me so you're still good in my books

Finally, they had some fossils arranged in a setting that may have been more naturally occurring in the time. Namely dinosaurs eating the living organs out of each other.

Om nom nom

After we got out of the museum we went over to Reptile World, which apparently boasted the worlds largest living collection of reptiles. I use the word apparently because like a repeating record player, Reptile World was yet another tourist attraction that was closed on stupid days, in this case Wednesday and Thursday. Today being Wednesday, they were not open, so we saved our money and went elsewhere.

Outside of town is the more famous Badlands landscape. While I thought it was more prevalent across the province, it is apparently mostly located inside the Red Deer river valley from what I can tell. However, the terrain within the valley has been eroded in such a way that it looks like a landscape from another planet. It was really interesting to see the weird shapes that the hills were in due to the geographical history of the region. The only drawback is that this landscape, and the surrounding town of Drumheller was full of Mosquito's. Now I'm not talking an annoying amount of Mosquito's like they have in Moncton or near a swamp, I'm talking about a veritable swarm of Mosquito's, there were so many you could hear their humming as they swarmed through the air, not even past your ear, there was just an overbearing whine in the general area, it was gross.

Nice picture, but not featured in it? Mosquito's so thick they'd carry you away

Then we drove all the way to the other end of the valley to check out the Hoo doo's. These are really weird terrain features because of their story. Basically there is this piece of erosion resistant rock that sits on top, as the water receded from the river valley over time, the rocks did not erode, so the water flowed around the rock, saving the dirt and sand right under the rock from erosion, resulting in a bit of a rock on this pillar of dirt in this otherwise completely flat area. Sort of like the Hopewell Rocks in New Brunswick.

It's like a scene out of some sort of Star Wars Franchise

Finally we visited the 'Ghost Town' of Wayne. I was a little disappointed because it wasn't really a ghost town in the traditional sense. Basically there was a town there at one point during the gold rush, but it was abandoned and left to ruin. It looks like it was resettled more recently, but then is slowly being abandoned again. There were lots of newer style housing, but plenty of them were abandoned. However there was a district lack of pioneer style houses, likely because they would have all turned to dust at this point. It did have an interesting sign though.

I enjoyed they they have a 'x number of days since last accident' style population counter

Tomorrow we head up to Calgary Downtown proper to see if there is anything noteworthy to do up there.