Dinosaur Provincial Park

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Our last stop -- Dinosaur Provincial Park. It’s hot! 34 degrees Celsius and there are little sand flies everywhere! We have air-conditioning, but no electricity. I try to sit outside, but the bugs seem to enjoy me more than I enjoy them. So I move inside the trailer and it’s like an oven! I decide that something has to change! I go to the office and ask if there are any electric sites available. Yes there are, but we’ll have to move today and tomorrow -- sounds good to me. I pay the difference and a half hour later -- ahhhh, I’m in air-conditioned heaven.



The Perseid meteor showers take place every year at this time with the greatest number of shooting stars falling on the 12th and 13th of August. Tonight is August 9th -- David stays up and watches the show. I fall asleep.



The next day, Don from California notices David’s license plate number VE6 RKT which designates him as an amateur radio operator (and, if you’re an amateur radio operator, you know these things.) The RKT is short for rocket, which anyone who knows David would be able to guess. We also met his wife, Gail and their two little dogs. David's hobbies often attract fellow travellers.



In the late afternoon, we joined a sunset tour out into the park’s natural preserve. We went on this tour last year, and it is a great way to see places in the park you normally would never be able to see. It’s specially designed for photographers. Just the names of the places give a glimpse into the sights -- the Valley of the Gold, Valley of the Castles and Valley of the Moon.



Matthew and Curtis joined us about 9:30 pm. I stayed up this evening and watched the the shooting stars fall from the sky. Watching this display brought back fond memories of watching this same meteor shower when I was about 11 or 12 years old. I slept outside at my friend’s house on a gentle slope in her backyard which was in the small town of Carstairs where I grew up. It seems amazing (and a little sad) that we now have to seek out remote places to view these same stars.





The next morning, we joined another tour of the badlands. This time we went on the Centrasaurus quarry hike. I was so thankful that it was a much cooler day than yesterday. There was even a gentle rain. There are so many fossils in this area that you almost can’t help but step on them. Our guide stopped a number of times to talk about the importance of the park -- it’s a UNESCO World Heritage Site with the highest concentration of of high-quality fossils from the late Cretaceous period. Our final stop was a centrasaurus bone bed that had been quarried by paleontologists for 12 years. This quarry contained the fossils of over 300 centrasaurs. The environment of this hot dry desert-like area of Alberta has changed many times: it was covered by a large inland sea, it was a hot humid cedar-like forest, and even covered by glaciers. The erosion that has taken place gives glimpses into the past and makes one recognize that the world has changed many times, and for much of that time, humans were not even in the picture (or on the planet).





The canoe was tired of being on top of the truck. So David drove it upriver, took it off the truck, and Matthew, Curtis and I climbed in and glided onto the water. The Red Deer River runs through the Deadlodge Canyon. This wide, slow river meanders its way through the badlands with cottonwood trees lining the banks. We weaved our way down the river -- sometimes to the left, sometimes to the right -- to keep in the deeper waters and avoid the shallows. We had a great time with me in the middle trying my best to keep up with my young vigorous shipmates -- Matthew in the bow paddling with long, strong strokes, and Curtis in stern steering our little craft and issuing orders to his crew. There were scores of birds catching the scores and scores of bugs, and even a young moose eating plants along the banks of the river. Now, David had calculated we would be paddling for about 3 or 4 km.... After 10+ km, we arrived at the campground to find David who had realized his calculations had been slightly off. (I think the canoe had a hand in these calculations.)







In the evening we had our first campfire of our holiday. (I’m not a fan of campfires -- once in a while is fine, but if everyone in a campground has one, the air becomes polluted and seems to negate the whole purpose of leaving the city.) The main reason for campfires (in my opinion) is marshmallows -- something else that should only be done infrequently. The other reason, for campfires is the opportunity it gives to gather and talk, or just stare into the flames and dream. Tomorrow we will head home, Matthew, Curtis and the Two of Us.

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Photos

Shadow Mates
The Two of Us - two shadows just passing through.

Canoeing on the Red Deer River
Matthew - the "motor"
Me - the ballast

Nearing Shore
"Perhaps we should slow down a little boys!"