Royal Tyrell Museum

After getting situated in the very nice campground in Calgary and doing the laundry because the underwear drawer was EMPTY we checked around and found the best way to get down to the Stampede.  The best plan turned out to be to drive about 10 minutes from the campground on the freeway - which is a bit different here because sometimes there are traffic lights even though it is divided two lane like a real freeway and then it goes back to regular freeway - and take the train into the city center.  As we were driving up to check out the parking lot and make sure we really had it figured out because we had to be downtown to get our bus to the parade seats at 7:45 lo and behold this is what we saw up on a one of the hills just to the north west of town

The new Calgary Temple.  We drove up to the construction site and got this picture.  It will be finished later this summer with the open house in September and dedication in October.  It is on a really prominent site.  When we got back to our campsite which is right next to the Calgary Olympic Park with the ski jumps and bobsled track from when they had the winter Olympics in 1988 and about 8 miles across the valley we could actually see the Temple once we knew where to look.

Anyway back to my original story - we had some time after figuring out the plan and had been recommended to the dinosaur museum about an hour's drive out across the prairie to the northeast of Calagary in the Canadian Badlands town called Drumheller.  The drive out was beautiful with endless fields of grain and bright yellow canola growing and the big clouds and prairie skies.

The Royal Tyrell Museum is AMAZING with lots of dinosaur bones and exhibits with stories of the different people that found the sites and then came to the museum to come and "harvest" the bones.  There were several man made dinosaurs in front that all of the children were enjoying. Dad says its name is "Albertasourus".

Several of the major finds were by amateurs or hobbyists.  Some of the finds were also by big equipment in the process of getting oil out of the shale.  It is surprising the bones were not damaged by the heavy mining equipment.  It was way more interesting than any other dinosaur spot I had ever been. There were lots of trails and even a Provincial Park you could go and see other fossils and things still visible in the rocks. They also had big glass windows to the room where the scientists were working on getting the current bones out of the rock with all kinds of drills and vacuums.  All very amazing - much fancier than either Fossil Butte or Vernal. 

Dad only got a couple of pictures in there because it was quite dark in the display rooms.

On the way back through town we decided to stop for dinner at a place called Boston Pizza we had seen in several towns along our journey.  It turned out to be more like Chili's with lots of choices and neither one of us had pizza but it was delicious.  It is a chain so we are recommending you try it if you ever happen on to it.