Drumheller Vacation 2013 Part 3: The Cretaceous

The Royal Tyrrell museum wash astonishing, both in the exhibits they offered and the presentation of the museum as a whole. Again, we tried to explain as much as possible about the meaning of the museum to the kids and that dinosaurs lived a long time ago and the land was likely very different. In a conversation with Jen, Robin was getting the "before humans" idea, deciding if we lived in the undersea era in Alberta, we would need a house boat. Robin was also allowed Jen's iPhone to take pictures with. The results were interesting:

The main highlights of the museum included the MASSIVE Tyrannosaurus Rex fossil right near the entrance (it was preserved in what looked like a dead throe).  Other highlights included one of the first dinosaur fossils showing evidence of feathers, the interactive placement of the fossils with each other to look as if the carnivores were eating the herbivores, and being able to see through the glass into the labs where the actual scientists were cleaning and categorizing fossils. They also had many videos rolling describing everything from fossil formation to roll excavators played. Robin seemed to love it. Olivia, on the other hand, was interested but so tired that she was in a dazed state, wanting to come "up-ee" half the time and wanting me to put her down the other half. I think she did get something out of the museum, but I'm pretty sure her favourite part of the adventure was the slurpee she got. Then again, I think that was Robin's favourite part too. And since it was over 35C, Jen and I didn't mind our ice capps either.

It was likely that very heat that led to the night's crazy storm. Olivia was asleep in the car and Robin went into Yvette's camper to watch a movie. Seeing a little rain coming down, I thought I'd stay under the bug tent and make us some supper. I started to feel pretty invincible to the elements, smug in the protection I was offered in the tent. I could cook supper for my family as a torrential downpour battered the ground just feet away from me. I had bested mother nature. Then reality hit. The rains decided the did not want to stop or slow down, and mother nature called out "Oh, you missed the storms that caused the floods earlier? Here, let me show you what that was all about" as a pool began to form and slowly creep into the bug tent. It was around then I noticed our sleeping tent vestibule had the beginnings of a minor river running through it. About this time, Jen got out of the car with none-too-happy-from-just-waking-up Olivia and rushed to the picnic table under the tent. It was at this point I realized I had forgotten my rain gear in the sleeping tent. While Olivia exclaimed her displeasure about all the water in the air (and being awake in general) I rushed back to our tent. In the vestibule I saw the small river running past our tarps and I started chucking our bags into the tent to avoid the waters, lucky finding and donning my raincoat in the process. The river was stopping and I had to find a digging tool fast. The first and only tool on hand was Gustav's small green plastic trowel which I grabbed and bent down to dig some water diverting trenches. This worked surprisingly well, until all the rain water from my back - which was beading off my raincoat as planned - changed course as I bent over and beelined into my apparently amply accessible bum crack. The shock sent me darting into the vestibule for some protection, where I found Robin's Minnie Mouse umbrella. I went back into the rain, umbrella placed strategically over my but, and dug the rest of the trenches. I finally finished and saved the tent from a soaking, but felt substantially different from the person who had "bested" mother nature, in no small part because I myself was saved by Minnie Mouse. As the rain still hadn't stopped, we all crammed into Yvette's trailer for supper, where my wet behind wiped any thoughts of hubris from my mind. The kids had a great time in the trailer and got to watch movies in the top bunk until the rain stopped and we went to sleep in our thankfully dry tent.

The next day we took it easy, going swimming again just hanging out around the campsite. Although there were still more attractions to see in Drumheller (like the reptile petting zoo Reptile world which we never did visit) it was time for a break. The kids spent time playing with each other and us adults got a break from having to go anywhere. Robin set up a "museum" using our tent vestibule as the exhibition area. We all got tickets. My favourite part was the inside of the tent, which I think was an exhibit you could go into and look at sleeping bags (and ended up being a nest of sorts for Brigitte and Hugo). We would take another visit to the Royal Tyrrell again tomorrow.

On the Thursday before we left we returned to the museum as there was still a lot to do and see. Since the rains made it no longer feel like the surface of the sun on a hot day, we embarked on a hike in the hills near the museum. With the exception of Jen (7 months pregnant) and Olivia (who would last 3 minutes then say "car-ye me!") we made an interesting hike in the unique landscape of the area. Getting to see the heavily eroded hills up close was fascinating. The mud on the hills is composed of the easily washed away bentonite clay, which the kids collected in their hats and called "dinosaur popcorn". Although no fossils were found on the hike, it was nice to be out on a hike and introduce the kids to an alien environment.

Once we headed back, there was a science talk provided by the museum in a mini auditorium on the side of the building. The kids got right into it, with Brigitte answering questions and the others looking entranced (Hugo even made a Hugo-style comment to the instructor about Brigitte answering questions that left him flabbergasted. I wish I could remember what he said - it's hard to replicate Hugo style). Shortly following the presentation, we discovered the public was able to make fossil castings! Each family signed up two kids, but when we got to the door, children 3 and under weren't allowed in, so Olivia and I had to wait. She wasn't that disappointed though. We were going to get her souvenir that she had been waiting ALL WEEK to pick out. In the end, she chose the most delicious souvenir ever. They were gummy. I even got a bite. Thanks Ollie. We met up and found that Jen made a cast of a duck billed dinosaur toe, and Robin made a mastodon tooth.

We took our prizes back to the campsite, we had our last supper together and had a last play around the campground. It was nice when the kids played, as the adults got to sit and talk as children whizzed by, off to play "family" in our van, wander through the bush, or give puppy dog eyes asking when marshmallow time was going to be (or if you were Gustav, you were having fun getting into everything you could). Yvette talked about her plans to move to Bowen Island and shared some wisdom on life with three kids. It was a great moment to connect. On Friday morning we wasted no time packing up for the long trip each of us had ahead of us. Yvette was going south to a Country Festival in Oregon, while we were making the two day trek home.

What a fantastic trip. I hope this was a time the kids will remember and think back on as one of those storied family trips. Really, the dinosaurs in Drumheller and even the splash pad were secondary to getting to spend time with Yvette and her family. I feel lucky to call Yvette a sister, and the kids really had time to connect. Olivia I think had the hardest time of all saying goodbye. She's a tough kid, but when she connects to people she connects hard.

On the way home we stopped at my friend H's (Adrian) house in Brandon. He ended up offering me a teaching position at BU that would have been really good for me career wise. I thought about it pretty hard in the next weeks. The job was a term to start in January, about the same time Jen would go back from mat leave with Blueberry. In the end I decided against it. Right now I'm where I want to be.

Drumheller Vacation 2013 Part 2: The Jurassic

Once we were settled in, I got a good look at how much Yvette's kids had grown. Gustav was walking about and discovering the world as only an 18 month old can. Hugo was a slightly bigger version of the joking rascal I had seen last. Brigitte it seemed had eaten some magical beans and had sprouted to what seemed to be twice last year's height, but was still the mild mannered playful kid as before. Something was nice about feeling like things hadn't changed much in a year. Except that Ken had transformed into a German au pair named Runa. He picked up the accent pretty quickly too.  Actually, Ken was busy packing for their move to Bowen island, so stayed behind. Runa was really nice, and definitely not a transmogrified Ken.

The kids latched on to each other pretty quickly. They played "hiding in the woods" and "family" most of the time we were in the sites. Let me tell you, if your kids want to play "hiding in the woods", you encourage the hell out of the game and enjoy the short respite. You might even get to sit down. "Family" consisted of the expected, with each child taking up a roll in the family. Robin had been in a bossy mood those last couple of weeks, so most often she was the Mom, and Olivia was the Dad because, well, she just IS kind of bossy (in her sweet "Ollie the three year old is the only thing I will answer to" sort of way). Brigitte and Hugo were the children when they felt like playing along, and Gustav, he just got to be Gustav. Olivia and Hugo spent a lot of time playing in the little woods around our campground. I think she really liked it. At one point later in the week as we walked to the playground hand-in-hand, Ollie told me "I love Hugo. But I don't want to tell him." For some reason during their play, Hugo picked the name "Poopis" as a nickname for himself. So all the kids started calling him Poopis while they played. For example, Olivia exclaiming "That's enough chocolate sauce Poopis!" for reasons I'm still not sure of.

The campsite had a nice enclosed playground, but the real boon for the site in the kids mind was that just across the river, there was the much anticipated splash pad located beside the World's Largest Dinosaur (which, true or not, is what it was called). The splash pad was not to be under emphasized, as the whole time leading up to the trip the kids would describe it as "We're going to the splash pad at Drumheller", as though THAT'S what we drove 13 hours to solely do. As a matter of fact, that was a lot of what we did.

We got up the first morning to - surprise - go to the water park. It was a great area for a hot day, with a wading pool that had a fountain in the middle, as well as a spray park. We learned while we were there that there was going to be a big celebration at the park the next day for Canada Day, so we made the usual bargains and promises with the kids to come back the next day.  That night, Yvette had a fantastic idea. Since we only see each other once a year, we would throw a birthday party for, well, everyone! We got some sponge cakes from the store, plus icing, decorations, and a little present for each kid. I got one from Yvette too. And mine was the best (that's right, it's a little Scotsman with bagpipes AND a kilt).

On Canada day they had a great celebration in the shadow of the World's Largest Dinosaur (the efficient science writer in me thinks I should call it WLD for now on). There were giant blow up slides and bouncy castle like things everywhere, which the kids did none of and just ran through the splash pad and then hid in the few shadows there were from the incredible heat. One of the few shady spots afforded by the park was under a much smaller dinosaur statue than the WLD, which I will just call Not the WLD. The kids spent the rest of the day chasing each other through the legs of Not the WLD, interspersed by adventures into the giant wading pool with the fountain. I'm not sure if they had gobs or oodles of fun. Plus we popped into the pool in their aquatic centre for a while, a nice way to get out of the heat. Nearing the end of the day, we promised the kids we could climb up to the top of the WLD and go inside it's mouth. So we took the 108 stairs up to the top and stood in the gaping maw of the Tyrannosaurus Rex and looked out over the splash park and still very high Red Deer River. From there you could really see how the massive berm next to out campsite averted the Calgary-like flooding. To convince the kids to go back down, I informed them that it would be like the WLD was pooping us out, getting resounding "ewwws" and "yays" depending on the child. After a long day under the shadow of the WLD, we headed back to the campsite. There were some nice fireworks, but the kids had long since gone to bed, if not to sleep (as in the case of "I'm awake and still want to be a goof-ball and bug my sister" Olivia).

The Tuesday following Canada Day was predicted to be a scorching 35C and sunny, so we thought that would be a good day to hit the Royal Tyrrell museum, the place that was pretty much the real reason to go to Drumheller. At least for the adults. Who like science and Dinosaurs. And didn't drive 13 hours just for a splash pad. *Ahem* Although the museum was not far from our campsite, we decided to take the scenic route. It started by taking the aptly named South Dinosaur Trail which ran along the south side of the Red Deer river north east of Drumheller. The landscape around there was amazing, and very hard to capture in a picture. We stopped at the Orkney lookout to get an amazing view. The rock faces of the cliff walls were visibly streaked with horizontal shades, and we described as best we could to the kids that the all of the lines in the rocks were made as they were formed, with the new rock forming on top, so that the farther you looked down, the older the rock was. We also told them that when the dinosaurs died, they were buried and some of them turned into fossils and could be found in the rock of the right age. I think some of that even sunk in, at least with Robin. We continued to the quaintly modern Bleriot Ferry which crossed the Red Deer River over to the North Dinosaur Trail and went south to stop at Horse Thief Canyon. The view was astonishing and we took a picture, but again you just can't capture the full effect. After that, we headed down the Dinosaur Trail to meet Yvette and the crew at the museum.

Drumheller Vacation 2013 Part 1: The Triassic

Yvette and I decided for our yearly get together to go to Drumheller, the dinosaur capital or Canada. This seemed like a great idea, since it's pretty much right between our home towns of Winnipeg and BC, allowing us to drive there with our tent and Yvette to pull her 1970's trailer. The part that didn't seem so great was that one week before our trip, Calgary flooded, and high waters were coming at Drumheller too! Frantically, we searched the bad lands of Montana for alternate (aka non-flooded) campsites we could go to and checked our passports, travel insurance for pregnancy and all other necessities of going to the US of A. Just as we were about to trade the impending flood waters of Drumheller for the bone chilling waters of Glacier Park Montana, the Drumhellians (yes, that's what they call themselves) were spared the flood! In 2005 they had an "end of days" style flood, and had since increased the height of its berms. I called our riverside campground the day after the flood waters crested, and hallelujah! The water from Red Deer River went up to four feet from the top of the berm before receding. "God bless (not having to go to) America".

The kids were astonishingly good on the ride, with the help of Winnie the Pooh and Franklin in video format. And Gravol for Ollie. Because I am done with the horrible combination of barf and car seats. Which is exactly where Olivia barfed the morning we were packing to leave for the trip. The night before we left, Olivia had caught Robin's stomach bug of earlier in the week and it reared it's ugly head. We were at a Bomber game, and Ba'cha was there to clean it up (thanks again). The next morning, the day we were to head out, I was driving Robin to what was to be her last day of school and I made it half way down our back lane when I heard a quiet "my tummy hurts" from the back seat. Before I could say "what's wrong my sweet adorable child?" I said "AAAAHHHHH!!! Hold it in hold it in hold it in!!!" And parked as quickly as I could. I did so just in time to hear Mount Olivius erupt. The twitch below my right eye that I've named my "Olivia twitch" began again, and we went back home, deciding that Robin's actual last day of school was the day before. After cleaning the car seat in the many stages it takes to clean a puke laden car sear, I frantically finished packing and picked up Jen, with the wonders of Gravol keeping the vomit-monster out of our car the rest of the trip.

We made the first stop in a nice park in Brandon, with Gravol gorked Olivia making comments about the clouds and sounding like a teenager experimenting with acid. We kept trucking for a good 9 hour day. When arriving at Swift Current's Motel 6 at 2AM I discovered that clicking on "two beds" making an online reservation meant "I'd also gladly take one bed for four people please!" We had to drag the Thermarests and sleeping beds in for the kids. After telling the kids "Guess what?!? You guys get to start camping early!!!", we got excited hoorays, leaving myself and Jen to a comfortable bed one last night with them excited to be on the floor.

The following day we had a much shorter drive and made it to Drumheller. It was the Saturday of the Canada long weekend, and we had a campsite in the River Grove Campground, right next to Yvette's RV site . They had driven for the last four days from Vancouver through flood ravaged western Alberta, and we managed to arrive within 30 minutes of each other in town. We gave each other exhausted greetings then began to set up. Our spots were nestled at the back of a dead end lane, so we absconded the road to shove together our two picnic tables and corresponding picnic tents. Those tents proved very useful for keeping out both the rain and the bugs. Little did we know, it seems that valleys of Drumheller are home to the cousins of every single mosquito in Winnipeg, plus a few aunts and uncles. A Winnipeger apparently does not go to Drumheller to escape the bugs. As for the rain, well, that comes later.