I was leaving
the house this morning with a high sense of expectation about a frolicking good
time with 2 good friends to parts unknown (at least by me). Even before leaving I got a smile out of
watching Mother and Bambi roam about the back yard in search of nibblies. Once they sensed my presence they posed
beautifully for me so the pictures here are evidence of my need to hone my
photographic skills not their stance. I
also got to laugh again at the gigantic mushrooms discovered in the back 40
yesterday. I had a great deal of fun
taking some creative pictures of them.
Indeed, I am building a wonderful portfolio of mushroom photos which
take the place of my greater love, butterflies.
Sadly they simply won’t be still enough to snap!
Now about the day . . . took my time
driving on a Saturday morning which was rather nice since very few cars on the
road. Sat on the curb of the parking lot
for a couple of minutes before friends arrived and then it was woot, woot and
on our way northeast to Drumheller and the land of dinosaurs, hoodoos and
eleven bridges. I bet you didn’t know
there is a one horse town called Wayne that has a population of 28 and eleven
bridges. Such a tourist trap! But first we wove our way through Calgary’s
construction zone, also known as Stoney Trail or 22X. Then we segued through Langdon and out on Hwy
9. Zippadeedodahday we skimmed past the
ultra speeders who were held up by the RCMP and swung in to Horseshoe
Canyon. What a panaroma of desert like
or moon like or space like landscape and very different from the prairie over
our shoulders.
The Royal Tyrell Museum is simply
amazing. To say that I was seriously
impressed is an understatement so all I can say is that Alberta really went all
out to make a world class museum of this truly historical, amazing area. First of all, the price to get in is really
reasonable (adults $11), and then to be greeted by a gynormous dinosaur on
entry was just perfect. There was
nothing lame about the continual displays of dinosaur bones, recreations of skeletons,
instructional tableaux, it was really wonderful. I do recommend anyone who is a real buff to
go on a weekday and perhaps best not in the summertime as it was extremely well
attended (understatement). It was so
crowded when we were there that we felt pushed along through the museum and
barely scratched the surface of the place and yet I was quite satisfied with
what we saw. Then we cruised along to
look for a ferry crossing but our stomachs forced us to turn around and head
for a restaurant. We found Athena’s and
enjoyed some great Greek food (where Clint Eastwood had eaten back when he filed
Unforgiven), a little wine and some good conversation. 
Then
it was on to the hoodoos and again I can only wonder why I had never taken this
trip before. It was like being on a Star
Wars set and waiting for George Lucas to call “roll it”. We were very lucky to have a good sunny day
but it was still good to scramble back in the car and get cooled down with some
air conditioning. Just because, we had
to drive to Wayne and over eleven bridges, which of course we counted along the
way. Wayne used to be one of the big
boom time mining towns back around 1920 but progress kind of left it in the
dust (in more ways than one, you might say).
A
truly memorable day back into history.
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