drumheller!

howdy!

i think winter has packed its bags and headed to the mountains!! i'm looking out the lounge windows and i can't see ANY snow (except for the tiniest patch way over on the hill). we had a stunning weekend and i even lasted about 3 minutes outside in a t-shirt. i could've lasted longer if i wasn't such a whimp. it really is relatively warm. being march (oh my god, is it really march already??) i don't think the snow's coming back until next winter.

we hired a car again in the weekend (it was nowhere near as rad as the last car which was probably a good thing coz we covered it in mud) and on saturday we travelled about 1 and a half hours east to the quirkiest little town called drumheller. drumheller's home to about 8000 people and hundreds of dinosaur bones. travelling from calgary across the plains the landscape gets increasingly barren until you hit a canyon. i have never seen a proper big canyon before, and so horseshoe canyon was as big a deal as i'm sure the grand one would be! according to the signs drumheller was 2 kms ahead but all we could see was dirt and rock all the way to the horizon - is drumheller an invisible town?!?! and then 2km further we suddenly clicked... drumheller is IN the canyon!!! woah! :)

this town is mental about dinosaurs, in fact it has the world's most impressive dinosaur museum (unfortunately though we ran out of time to see it), and there are many fibreglass dinosaurs loitering in the streets. the canyon and 'badlands' surrounding drumheller were once roamed by the beasts and their fossils and bones littered the area. dinosaur digs and discoveries still continue there. drumheller is the "capital" of the badlands area and the landscape is so different from the snowcovered mountains and forests we've encountered in banff and canmore. it felt like we were in an old wild west movie - dirt, rock, canyons and hoodoos. hoodoos are amazing! they are rather phallic rock formations caused by erosion from waterways that existed millions of years ago and are part of the stereotypical american desert image. we were really naughty and sat on top of one to eat our lunch (couldn't resist the view, the sun, and the atmosphere of the place even though i felt constant guilt over contributing to the accelerated erosion of that hoodoo).

instead of visiting the dinosaur museum we popped into 'reptile world' and oggled at hundreds of fascinating frogs, lizards, snakes and alligators. to my great disappointment ger was not impressed with the frogs at all and simply said that if one managed to escape from it's terrarium he would squish it underfoot without a thought. like an annoying bratty child he insisted on traumatising the poor little fellas by tapping his keys on the glass too. i'm convinced he just needs to be educated about the wonders of froggies though so haven't given up on him yet. on the other hand he was quite taken with the snakes and i could tell he was rather excited when the keeper asked us if we wanted to meet one up close. after he saw that britney the boa constrictor didn't eat me he decided to have a hold and was amazed to discover that snakes are not slimy! we had the whole place to ourselves too (apart from the keeper and the reptilians) which was great - no annoying heads and shoulders to peer over, and we had britney the boa all to ourselves.

drumheller is such a strange and interesting place (to visit, though wouldn't wanna live there) and i would recommend stopping by to anyone passing through the canyon! i put some pics up of course :)

http://wedged.showcard.co.nz/gallery/album23

wow, it really is a beautiful day. i'm gonna get off the computer, have some lunch and go get some sunshine.

be good :)

love d xx