Day 42: Drumheller to Banff National Park, AB

Dinosaurs galore was the theme of the day. But before we got to those, we stopped to check out the Drumheller badlands and hoodoos. Rain seems to be coupled with badlands on this trip and today Alistair and I got foiled by the slimy bentonite clay and both got an unanticipated mud bath.

After a full clothes change, we visited Tyra the Tyrannosaurus, the World’s largest dinosaur, during her final run in Drumheller. She is scheduled to be decommissioned and perhaps moved in 2029. She looked to be in fine form this morning.

As expected, our visit to the Royal Tyrell Museum was fantastic. This is an exceptional museum and it did not disappoint even if it was Ian’s and my second visit. We loved how the museum takes you on a journey through the eras showing the dominant life forms during each period and then outlining the five major extinctions and what effect each had on the life forms inhabiting Earth during that time. It is such a well thought out journey and so engaging. We loved it. The x12 real size Burgess Shale display is a crowd pleaser, we loved seeing so many original displays, and it was cool to see so many staff members hard at work in the glass walled laboratory.

We followed up the museum with the badlands interpretive walk located right behind it. Thank goodness the path was much less slippery than at the hoodoos. The sun even started to peek out which was a very welcome surprise. Ali found a deer leg (real and still with fur and a hoof on it) and chased the brothers around with it much to their disgust. We finally convinced him to throw it away and then we hand sanitized him thoroughly. Ew.

We did a stop for gas and groceries in Calgary before heading into Banff National Park. We are staying for four nights at Johnston Canyon Campground and have some pretty intense hikes planned over the next few days. There is lots of firewood available here and we are excited for campfire hotdogs!

Day 41: Glacier National Park, MT to Drumheller, AB

We are back in Canada! For a while anyway…

It was still sprinkling rain when we woke up this morning. It has been raining day and night for three days straight! Regardless, we got up and ate breakfast. Liam tried out his birthday gift - a travel blender. We then packed up and headed over to pick up our rental e-bikes for our trip on the Going to the Sun Road, rescheduled from Sunday. Unfortunately, the tour company had forgotten to reschedule us a bike carrier along with the bikes, so we had no way to transport the bikes to the road. Sigh. After some back and forth, no solution could be found so they opted to refund our rental and we headed off to find a different adventure to fill our morning. In all honesty, it was still drizzling and cloudy so I’m not sure the views would have been spectacular and we would have likely gotten wet and cold. Perhaps this particular adventure just wasn’t meant to be at this time. Maybe a different e-bike adventure will present itself later in the trip.

We ended up driving around the park, back to East Glacier, and then on to St. Mary’s. After dropping the trailer off at the visitors centre, we drove along the open segment of the Going to the Sun Road from the East side. Luckily, on our second pass we were able to score one of the (only) ten parking spots to hike to St. Mary’s falls. The hike was mostly flat and our luck continued with a break in the rain while we were on the trail - Woot! Woot! We continued past the first falls on to Virginia Falls which was very misty. Both falls were huge with tons of water pounding down thanks to all this rain we’ve been having. It was quite something to behold.

The remainder of the day was spent mostly driving. We crossed the border just North of Glacier to enter Alberta. We passed through Fort MacLeod, got gas in Vulcan, and eventually arrived at the Hoodoo Campground near Drumheller.

It is still raining here even though we are out of the mountains and there are giant puddles all over; however, I suppose rain is preferable to snow.