Canadian Rockies Vacation 2019 Days Five and Six.

We left Jasper on Monday Aug 12th. We stood in a long line to get breakfast and sandwiches (for later) at the Bears Paw Bakery. Their monster cookie was yummy. We were on the road by 10 am, driving south on Highway 93. We stopped for a break at the Columbia Icefields.

We took some beautiful photos at Waterfowl Lake. Dumb name for such a gorgeous spot!

We stopped at Lake Louise Village to stretch our legs. I bought a book on Mary Schaffer, who was the first non-aboriginal woman to explore Banff and Jasper parks and put Maligne Lake on the map. You can learn more about her here. We learned about Mary during our cruise to Spirit Island.

We went to the Banff Springs Hotel. It was fun exploring. My favourite part of BSH is Mount Stephen Hall. They were setting up for a wedding when we were there so we couldn't go in.

I drove from Banff to Calgary. It rained the whole way! We arrive in Calgary around 6 pm. We got burgers and milkshakes from Peter's Drive in. I got supper from Shwarma Palace in the Falconridge neighbourhood. Huge portions at a great price.

We stayed at the Port O'Call in Northeast Calgary. We were given a bad room to begin with that smelled of chlorine and had a "window" that faced the waterslide. We did move to a better room. I accidentally left my pillow (that I take with me when I travel that supports my neck) behind in the first room and getting that back was a bit of a bruhaha.

We noticed the price of gas in Calgary was the lowest of any place on our trip.

Day Six. Our best breakfast of our vacation was from Port o'Call. They had a breakfast buffet that was incredible. Cereals, fresh fruit, scrambled eggs, bacon, sausages, french toast, yogurt, and hot oatmeal. We were on the road at 10 am. We stopped for gas in Balzac. I checked out the store. It is quite rundown and depressing. When I was young, our mailing address was Balzac, Alberta.

We stopped again in Airdrie to change drivers. A drove for an hour on a very straight, quiet road.

We stopped at Horseshoe Canyon.

Arrived in Drumheller and went to the Royal Tyrell Museum of Palaeontology. They have a collection of over 130,000 fossils. Here is what J wrote:

"The museum itself was impressive if you like dinosaurs bones. I thought it might be a bit kid oriented but actually kids under 10 would probably be bored. You move through it a bit like an IKEA, except without the exits. The boys went through quite quickly because they weren't reading everything. My favourite part was the section on the stories on how many of the fossils were discovered by miners, and oil and gas companies, while digging. Alberta is a treasure trove of dinosaur fossils. Sheila's favourite was Albertosaurus, which is "related" to T-Rex. We let the boys read all the millions of years this and millions of years that since we think they have the discernment to process it for themselves."

Albertosaurus:

A guy excavating a basement near Calgary in 2016 found this fish fossil:

A beautifully preserved skeleton:

How they hauled out bones in the old days:

The ammolite displays were beautiful.

I left the museum feeling proud of all the discoveries that have occurred in Alberta, my home province. We had lunch in Drumheller at Bernie and the Boys Bistro. Our server (a young man) was very friendly.

There is a huge dinosaur in town.

You can pay to go inside the dinosaur and take the stairs to the mouth part and look out. We didn't bother with that.

In the late afternoon, we drove to the Hoodoos.

The landscape is so unique.

What is a hoodoo? A hoodoo is a sandstone pillar resting on a thick base of shale that is capped by a large stone.

There were a two ice cream trucks parked in the Hoodoos parking lot. Very smart.

A drove for an hour on the way back to Calgary. I talked on the phone to my friend Carrie (who lives in Calgary). That night, I met Carrie at a coffee shop near her house and we talked for about 3 hours. My boys were quite surprised by that! How little they know about women. :)


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