Spring Break part 5

Spring Break part 5
(30-Mar-07)

Out of the mountains and into the prairies.
A quick stop at Airdrie on our way to Drumheller.
You can see just how flat it is in this part of Alberta.


We took a quick detour to Torrington to check out the Gopher museum.
(Which we found in a book called "Weird Alberta Places" - figures, huh?)
It was shut - it only opens in the Summer, so we continued on to Drumheller.
Behold! The world's largest dinosaur.
(Yes, I know, a normal sized T-Rex was not the largest dinosaur - especially compared to some of the huge sauropods like Brachiosaurus, but this particular dinosaur was, as they say, "not to scale" :-)



Of course, we had to check it out.
Up the back passage we go...



And all the way up to the mouth.



"Hello down there!"



"Hello up there!"





This is the town of Drumheller, set in the middle of the badlands.





"Look out behind you..."





Toe jam?



Next stop, the spa where Delle, Bron and Freya were staying.





While we were waiting for 6:00 to come around, we checked out the Little Church.



The name was correct on both counts.
It was a church, and it was little.





"Let us pray..."



So why were we waiting until 6:00?
That's when the Royal Tyrrell Museum opened for overnight business.



Looks like some of the dinos got loose.



Checking out where we'd be sleeping.
Look at the Allosaurus kissing the other dinosaur goodnight.



A quick meal. (See through the windows there - badlands.)



After dinner, they took us on edu-tours of various bits of the museum.
Here's some pre-prehistoric sea life.



Digging for fossils with Kirsten.







Found one!



Next activity, making pterodactyls









"I'm being swallowed by a Boa Constrictor..."



"And I don't like it very much."



A Stegosaurus tells Addie a bed time story.



And Cayde waits for his goodnight kiss from the Allosaur.



And the T-Rex keeps a parental eye on everyone.



See you in the morning...

Spring Break part 4

Spring Break part 4 - Canmore and surrounds.
(29-Mar-07)

The view from the front door of our room...


Our first stop on this day's trek was Lake Louise









So out onto the lake we go.



It looked safe enough. There were lots of other footprints, so it must have been ok, right?



Bother! Perhaps not.



Look - there's Mark with a soggy, freezing foot!



The view from the lake.







Info signs buried in snow. Yep, I can vouch that the water qualifies as both deep and cold.



Inside the resort itself. Pure, unadulterated luxury.



So what was Delle taking a photo of?



Well boys and girls, today we're looking through the arch window...



Right. Enough of that. Off to Banff we go.
Oh look! Another Fairmont Resort. Let's go there for lunch.



The view out the window from our table.



The view in the other direction - scary huh?



We ditched the kids and left them to organise their own lunch - they seemed to cope ok.



Outside to check the view.





If you look really carefully up the mountain, you can almost see where we headed next...



You can kind of see it a bit better here...


That's right, it's a gondola. A flopping huge gondola. (That's how far up it goes, not how big the things you sit in are - if you get what I mean.)



Up we go.







Awesome view on the way.



Getting higher.



Phew! We finally made it to the top.
Hey look. There is a path to another building on the next summit. Gotta go check that out.







Click on the photo below to zoom in and see if you can see where we had lunch.



There it is...



The view of the gondola terminal from the boardwalk.



Ah, it's a Cosmic Ray Station - of course!



Stu snaps a few more shots.



Cayde's on top of the world!

It's funny - we were higher here (2,256m) than any place in mainland Australia (Mt Kosciusko 2,228m)



Back down again - time to quickly check out the Ice Explorer bus.
These are the jobbies that drive out onto the Columbia Ice Fields (when it warms up a little :-)



More exploring. We found a closed trail, so we had to check it out.










Hoodoo time. (No, not that sort of Hoodoo)



Nope, those aren't Hoodoos, they're Elk.



The view back to the gondola, not that you can see it too clearly - it was getting a bit hazy by this time in the evening.


That's a Hoodoo.





And so back to Canmore we went.
It was getting a bit late and we hadn't eaten, so off to Boston Pizza we walked. On the way, we passed a Korean restaurant - "let's try that out" I say, realising what a long distance it was to go to Pizza (yes I am very lazy). The family overruled me, so we had ourselves a yummy BP dinner.
On the way back, we bumped into Simone, Mick, Danielle and Katie. They'd just had dinner in the Korean restaurant :-)
Anyway, they invited us for a swim in their hotel's pool and water slide the next morning, which we heartily agreed to.
So, next morning the kids and I head over for a whole pile of aquatic fun and games.
It was awesome fun - I think we managed to break just about every rule on the safety list, from not walking to not sliding feet first and not sliding one at a time :-)