Thursday, July 28, 2011

The Badlands of Alberta

Last Monday we took a little day trip to Drumheller to visit The Royal Tyrrell Museum. It is the only museum in Canada devoted exclusively to palaeontology and has one of the largest collections of dinosaur skeletons in the world.



The Canadian Badlands covers a broad swath of southern and eastern Alberta.


We are almost to Drumheller. The landscape is beginning to change.


Eons of compressed sea deposits have been carved by glaciation and subsequent erosion. That process is what made the Badlands. The dark layer you can see is coal. Besides dinosaurs, the town also had a large coal mine. Further down you will see other pictures of what else the Badlands have to offer.


I took this picture of the gas station to show you the dinosaurs. These dinosaurs are everywhere in the town of Drumheller. I even saw a blue Longneck with painted daisy's on it at a bus stop.


This is the visitors center. That was one huge Dino! It's the largest Dino in the world and stands 86 feet tall. If you paid you could walk up inside of it.


Here is the museum. Interesting how they built it into the landscape.


Kelly and Seth on our way in to the museum.


Seth! Open your eyes! Oh, well.


We were trying to make it look like T-Rex was eating Seth's head. We will have to try that little trick another time.


Here I am sitting in front of a Longneck. Remember those dinosaurs from the movie The Land Before Time? My kids loved that movie and so did I!


Here is a Stegasauras.


And here is a Mammoth. Crazy tusks eh? Look at that little dinosaur ready to jump on it's back.


Outside of the museum we took a walk around to see where some of these dinosaurs were unearthed.


Look at Kelly walking along......ahead of everyone. She was really motoring.


We left the museum and headed to another area of the Badlands. The next 3 pictures are of the Hoodoos which were also formed from erosion and took millions of years!




Now aren't those the neatest things you have ever seen? They are a site to see!


And here is Kelly and Seth zonked out on the drive back home. They don't even know that this picture exists. Ha!

4 comments:

Marilee said...

Those HooDoos are crazy. Pretty cool. Family outings can be fun yah? and successful if the kids fall asleep on the way home. You plum tuckered them out!

Dixie Dee said...

Sounds like fun, was it hot? Loved the Hoodoos, those are cool! Reminds me a bit of riding horses at Writing on Stone as a kid! (Can't do that kind of thing today,oh the freedoms of yesteryear!) Alberta has a lot to offer eh? Good for you guys!!

Dad said...

Great bones but no feet. ???

MLH said...

Will have to put that on the must see list - very cool. Isn't it great to have good blackmail pics on the kids... now if only there was some drool coming out...