From the Sublime to the Badlands

A hard day on the road. Graham did amazingly well driving in a snow storm practically all the way to Drumheller. We had a quick lunch at Chestermere at the Tim Hortons - cheap and cheerful. I had a very good cream of broccoli soup.
The landscape changed dramatically as we left the mountains and the flatlands around Calgary took over. Then about a half an hour before Drumheller the land began to undulate, and almost magically we descended into a weird ugly valley. Somehow it was so ugly it was exceptional and perhaps even weirdly beautiful. Apparently the badlands were named by early French explorers who called the steep-sloped mesas (flat-topped mountains) and deep, winding gullies as “bad lands to cross.” Absolutely!
The reason we are here is to attend the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Paleontology, because the wonderful thing about the Badlands of Alberta is that they harbour the richest deposits of dinosaur bones in the world. We may also visit the hoodoos if we have time. Then we will drive on towards Regina (pronounced Reg- eye-na like vag-eye-na, not Regeena as in Queen Victoria). It always makes me smile inwardly to say it and I want to create a limerick: “There was a young girl from Regina …” but I can’t think of a second line. Lol 😂Read more