Drumheller Pics #2

The Hoodoos, part of the Badlands.


The little church...I think it's a part of living in Alberta, everyone gets their picture taken there at one time or another.




Scott is waaaay up at the top, yelling, "There's cactus up here!!!" . I had just talked to my mom on the phone the night before, she wanted us to stop at Big Valley if we could to find some cactus in the ditch lol...luckily we found some here.


Said cactus. It gets hot in that valley...there's even friggin' rattlesnakes down there! Glad I didn't see any, that's for sure.

You know what my favourite part of vacationing is? Going to Wal Mart in whatever town we visit, and shopping for groceries at the Co-Op or Extra Foods if they have one. I took a picture of the valley while I was in the Drumheller Wal Mart parking lot, but I can't find it now...it's so odd, it's like you're sitting in the bottom of a gigantic dishpan, with these layered hills all around you, as far as you can see.

Drumheller Pics #1

Some pics of our vacation in Drumheller, Alberta .


This is a 6 story-high dinosaur by the pool, you can see it from all over town. I stayed at the bottom with Sam while everyone else went up.


View from the top. After Sam ran around the splash park for a while, we went swimming at the Aquaplex. I'm realizing that we go to the pool a lot...we went to a neat pool in Calgary, too, but I don't have any pictures.


Our hotel...The Jurassic Inn lol. It was so clean...I love Best Westerns. I can 'almost' take my shoes off when I'm there. Almost, I said :) .


Sammy Sunshine at the Fossil World Discovery Centre . Rawr. This place was cool, Sammy just ran her but off inside, there was nothing she could reach to break...it was meant just for kids, it was lots of fun.


It's a bone!


Now it's...Gumbie???


Digging for fossils. Each kid, even Sam, got a bucket with a shovel and a big paintbrush. If the kids dig deep enough, there is a large fossil under the sand, the length of the pit. While they are digging and brushing the sand away, they fill their pail with all sorts of cool-looking fossils. When they have had their fill of digging, they get to keep one of the fossils that they found, their choice. There was also a panning-for-minerals station and a rock-climbing station.


Lookit, I'm famous: my artwork is on display (the one on the top) :D .

Pics

Scott and I just had our very first vacation together, without any kids, since before Kylie was born! How very exciting. And now I get to bore you with the pictures lol.

We stayed at the Jasper Park Lodge, in Jasper (of course) which is super-duper fancy. A bowl of cereal cost $10, the same price as a beer...which I find absolutely stupid. But I guess you pay for the view, right? We were attending an insurance adjustor convention, so we got tons of free post-its, pens and lanyards to make up for the crazy prices.

...the lobby...fancy, huh? Freakin' stuffed, dead animal heads *everywhere*.

Golf-cart porters. These guys just sit outside, waiting to take you to your $300 per night cabin. Well, it wasn't really a cabin...more like row-housing. The rooms were teeny and hot, no air conditioning and it just happened to be really warm when we arrived.

I *think* this was the staff quarters, but I'm not sure...but note the breath-taking view of the Rockies in the background. I don't think I could ever get tired of that.

Are these bighorn sheep? Mountain goats? What do you call these things? We saw tons of them...no elk or bears though.

And this is a pic of me crushing the car in front of us.

It was a fun trip, and we were so lucky to have my husband's sister, who is a rockin' Auntie, and my mom to watch the kids while we were gone. I think it will be a while until we go somewhere without the kids again...I just missed them too much.

Oh, one more pic:

Kylie, in the parking lot after the Koshashin exhibit at the Edmonton Art Gallery. But more about that later...I also have a meme to respond to and an award (yay, me!). Tomorrow is the year-end free hot dog lunch at school as well as track and field day, and I have to finish off a few PAC reports. Busy girl, I am!