July 4th, Thursday

One more day till the Stampede ! Another touristy day - we headed towards Drumheller and dinosaur country. The first road we took we had to turn around as there had been an accident. I think Calgary is all about detours ! We had a WOW effect when we stopped at Horseshoe Canyon, the landscape is so different from the prairie land. The Badlands are multi coloured canyon walls and unusual rock formations.

As we descended into Drumheller it was more Badlands. Beautiful. And we saw a giant dinosaur on top of the Chamber of Commerce (25m tall) The Royal Tyrrell Museum was awesome and we kept thinking "The kids would love this !" Dinosaur info, bones, fossils, etc everywhere. Definitely worth the trip.

And onto Hoodoos provincial Park where there are unbelievable mushroom shaped pillars of rock created by centuries of wind and rain. Really magnificent

We saved Bernie's favourite till last - The Last Chance Saloon in the ghost town of Wayne. It was a 6 km drive on a narrow road, across 11 bridges and into the town where the only building remaining is the Saloon and The Rosedeer Hotel. Population used to be 2490 (mining town) and now it is 28. As you can see we made some new friends.

We left the Badlands and headed back to Calgary area. It was a beautiful drive thru rolling hills, green and yellow fields, small oil wells sitting in a lot of the planted fields, cattle, a farm off in the distance, straight roads, dirt side roads, a lot of water still high, and ducks enjoying all the new ponds. A huge rain shower developed as we were almost back - rain, hail and high winds but only lasted 5 minutes. Back safe and sound and getting ready to barbecue when another storm rolled in - rain. wind and hail again and a beautiful rainbow. Hopefully tomorrow will be a fine day