Today
was spent touring and doing laundry. We’ll leave out details of the latter.
Dinosaur
tourism is big here because the area is in the middle of the fossil-bearing
strata of the Late Cretaceous Horseshoe
Canyon Formation and it has specimens from the Badlands, Dinosaur Provincial
Park and the Devil’s Coulee Dinosaur
Egg Site. We don’t understand paleontology, but we do understand this is a
great place to learn more about it.
Silly
Stuff
The
World’s Largest Dinosaur is at the
information center just a few blocks from our campground. The Tyrannosaurus Rex is 86 feet high and made of fiberglass. You can climb inside, stand in its
mouth and have your picture taken. Impressed?
This
smaller (but, pretty big) T-Rex shares the park in front of the really “big
guy” above.
Just
in case visitors didn’t get the message, there are also smaller dinosaurs on many
of the street corners.
Serious
Stuff
The
Royal Tyrrell Museum is amazing. It’s
recognized world-wide and is far beyond our ability to describe. In short, you
must see it!
We
spent 3 hours viewing skeletal remains and reproductions. The exhibits were
educational and beautifully crafted. One exhibit took us on a Journey Through Time … 3.9 billion years
of evolution. We even got to see the Preparation Lab where fossils are
researched and prepared for presentation.
 |
| Entrance |
 |
| Cretaceous Alberta |
 |
| Tyrannosaurus Rex |
 |
| The Journey exhibit began here. |
 |
| Dinosaur Hall 145 million years ago |
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| Camarasaurus leg bone A complete reconstruction wouldn't fit inside the museum. |
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| Pachyrhinosaurus lakustai reconstruction |
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| Struthiomimus in the Death Pose |
A
Change of Pace
We
left the museum with bursting minds and in serious need of a topic change. The
6 mile drive to Horse Thief Canyon
provided just what we needed. We got to admire colorful layers of rock and
imagine the thieves who gave the canyon its name.
 |
| Horse Thief Canyon |
Our
Campground
It’s
clear that we've passed the holiday crunch. Most of the campers have left. It
looks and feels like a small ghost town.
Tomorrow
Lake
Louise is our target.
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