Drumheller
When you make your first trip to Drumheller, Alberta, the first thing you notice are the dinosaurs.
Drumheller is in the heart of the ‘badlands’, a place known for its many incredible dinosaur fossils.
For the last full day with our Vancouver family they asked us to join them for a day trip to Drumheller to visit the famous Tyrrell Museum.( It is a very long day so we told them we would book overnight rooms for us at our favourite Bed and Breakfast in Rosebud.)
We also booked our Museum time slot for 2 pm and after packing up all of our luggage and locking up the house we headed out for what we hoped would be a safe and fun day looking at the ‘dino’ bones.
This terrible heat wave continues to press upon us and at 33 degrees we were happy that we both had air conditioning in our cars.
The main businesses in ‘The Drum’ have really gotten into the spirit of this archeological wonderland as there were all kinds of dino statues and dino images in virtually every direction one looked.
What we didn’t expect were the hoards of unmasked people who were not inclined to socially distance as we lined up to get in. It was actually unnerving to be that close to that many people (300 every half an hour were let into the Tyrrell !) and the fellow who confirmed our tickets told us they usually let in thousands by that point in the day.
None of us, including our wee grandsons, could really enjoy the experience as we couldn’t take our time or hear well or even get close to the exhibits. We just felt hot and that we wanted to get out of the building as fast as we could….and that is not a good ending to an almost four hour drive where we were filled with joyful anticipation.
We took a few photos when we could but we all felt that the whole experience was a ‘fail’. AND weirdly, for THAT many patrons to the museum they only had THREE parking spots dedicated as handicapped accessible. I could tell that my own mobility issues would not allow me to walk that slowly for the day so we rented a wheelchair for me. This was a very good idea even though it bruised my ego to have to go back in that chair again.
Our museum experience was very short lived and we were all just feeling so hot and tired that we just head directly over to our Rosebud B & B, “The Country Inn” and went to our rooms to rest until dinner. B.J’s home-cooked, 4 course dinner of pureed carrot soup with fresh sourdough bread, locally sourced beet salad, followed by perogies, cabbage rolls with sour cream, and finally ,home baked peanut butter cookies with ice cream and caramel sauce for dessert, was a delight and a better end to a bit of a disappointing day.
Tomorrow is J’s birthday and we must say farewell to our wonderful son and his family as they make their way home to Vancouver via Fairmont.
Terry and I begin a bit of a ‘summer holiday’ as we head out to tour southern Alberta…and 10 days later… ending back where we started: in Rosebud, where we will be part of a professional play reading of Terry’s new musical!
