Messing around in Drumheller

A few weeks back, while my cousins were visiting, we drove out to Drumheller, Alberta. My first (and persisting) impression of the town? It's a a town in a hole in the ground. Driving across the prairie towards Drumheller you keep waiting to see it on the horizon. I mean out here you can see a shed from a couple kilometres off, so you'd expect you'd be able to see a town of some 8,000 people at least from the vantage of the 10km to Drumheller sign. But nope, nothing at all, until you're about 500m away and the highway takes a sudden turn, and drops down a steep hill into a hole in the prairie.

OK technically it's not a hole, it's the Red Deer River Valley, but that's the impression it left.

The town of Drumheller, as viewed from the mouth of the world's largest dinosaur. Notice the side wall of the hole in which the town is located.

That's right I said 'from the mouth of the world's largest dinosaur', note the teeth!

Later we took awesome pictures of my cousin Justin running for his life.

But don't worry, he actually has some serious dinosaur defense skills.

OK, so maybe it was already like that when we got there.

Overall the town of Drumheller, apart from being located in a hole, absolutely must have the record for most statues of dinosaurs. You could enjoy a pretty awesome day riding your bike around town trying to find them all. In fact the locals affectionately (maybe?) call the cementosaurs and you can find a walking tour of them all (plus a tonne of random facts) here.

Next up we headed to the Royal Tyrrell Museum, home to Alberta's Dinosaur collection (real fossils and not just cartoonish statues people!) This was my second visit, and I loved it just as much as my first. You can find my best shots from this visit over on my photography blog, by clicking this link.

But we also goofed around at the museum a little bit too...particularly in the gift shop. But I'll spare Justin the embarrassment of posting those photos... especially because he just started university. Instead I'll save them for his graduation or something!

We also met some Alberta wildlife in front of the museum... This adorable chubby, tourist fed Prairie Dog.

Finally, in keeping with the them/trend of the visit... Here's me doing yoga somewhere cool!

Aaaaahhhhh Utthita Hasta Padangusthasana B.... so much easier with the right leg than the left!

That's all I have to say from Drumheller for now, but I'll have to go back to visit again some time soon, and explore the nearby Horseshoe Canyon and Dinosaur Provincial Park. What exciting places did you visit this summer?