Alberta has proven to be really beautiful. Within a half hour of entering our first Alberta park we found a wandering garter snake. This is one of the three types of garter snakes that are found in Alberta and was a new species for us. We found it at Dinosaur Provincial Park. This park was absolutely stunning. We had been traveling through flat prairies and suddenly came upon a huge river valley badland area. This valley was carved out by the action of glaciers a long time ago. We also found another Prairie Rattlesnake in this park with the help of a researcher who was radio-tracking them.
We've seen a lot of dinosaurs since entering Alberta. Saskatchewan had the T-Rex centre, but in Alberta we've been to Dinosaur Provincial Park and the Royal Tyrrell Museum, both of which are devoted mostly to the fossil dinosaurs that have been found in the area. They both had really neat galleries and we managed to have time to spend looking around both. The Royal Tyrrell Museum was really neat, we did a show in their auditorium then went to explore the town of Drumheller nearby. Drumheller had really taken the dinosaur theme to the max. There were tons of dinosaur statues all over the town, which we of course took pictures of. Drumheller is also home to the worlds tallest dinosaur statue!
A couple of days ago we traveled up to Banff on a side trip to drop Lenny off so she could have a couple of days off before we send her home. We'll be picking her up in Calgary after her adventure so that we can deliver her to the airport where she will trade places with Sara. Banff was very touristy, but surrounded by wonderful mountains. I have never seen the mountains, so it was a great experience for me. (I believe i now have about 100 pictures of mountains on my camera ... may need to delete some of those).
While Lenny has been away the rest of us have had a few easy days. We've only had one show each evening. It's been nice to sleep in and spend time swimming and floating down the Bow River. We've also had a chance to catch up on some receipt filing and administrative duties. We're trying to take it easy now because once we get to BC our schedule will be a little busier. I'm looking forward to spending more time in the mountains though!
Well I'll sign off now, we're heading to the town of Vulcan - named long before Star Trek came along - however they didn't seem to mind the reference at all and have actually embraced the whole Star Trek reference with space ship statues, a Trek Information Centre selling a bunch of Star Trek souvenirs, and murals around town with scenes from the shows. We did a show here earlier in the week but are heading back today on our way to Little Bow Provincial Park so that we can do some shopping and hopefully get onto an internet connection.
- Heather