Go Mode, with an exception

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We are in go mode. When we were finishing our cruise from Juneau to Skagway, the captain said we wouldn’t stop even for whales playing hopscotch. We’re not quite there, nor are we in our typical drive 24 hours straight through to get home mode. But we are heading home.

Liam requested this morning that we stop at a dinosaur museum. He is still enthralled by Beringia, which I’m convinced was his absolute favorite thing he did this trip, but hasn’t quite gotten his dinosaur fix. Fortunately, we stopped briefly at a visitor center and found we weren’t that far from the T Rex Discovery Centre in Eastend, SK. It hosts part of Scotty, a nearly complete T Rex skeleton found nearby, as well as other fossils and casts of fossils. Interestingly, they have a cast of a T Rex skeleton that we saw at Museum of the Rockies in Montana. Liam walked around for about 10 minutes and announced he was done. Well, okay then. We kept him busy in a little play area so Jeff & I could actually get something out of our visit, and then took off for Hwy 1 and home.

We are stopped at a Wal-Mart in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. We really love the name Moose Jaw. It’s also the hometown of Peter Holoien, former Maverick, so what’s not to love? Mac the Moose lives here, and I took his photo at sunset. I love the name Saskatchewan, too. Who wouldn’t want to live in a province named Saskatchewan? At the visitor center I mentioned earlier, they had T-shirts that said, “Saskatchewan / Hard to spell Easy to draw.” We had to buy Liam one.


Conversation of the Day:

L: Mom, is it really your birthday?
M: Yes, it is.
L: That’s so cool.
M: How old do you think I am?
L: Tell me.
M: No, you guess.
L: I don’t know. 76?

License Plates Noticed: WA, AB, QB, CA, BC, SK, MB, ON, Newfoundland/Labrador

High Temperature: 81o (Medicine Hat, AB)
Low Temperature: 50o (Banff National Park, AB)

Miles: 606.3 (7323.7)

Total Time on the Road: 12:12

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Photos

T Rex Discovery Centre
Scotty was found near here, thus the remote location for a museum.

Family portrait
The exterior of the T Rex Centre was mirrored, so we finally got an almost decent picture of the four of us on this trip.

Leaving Banff
It didn't take too long before the mountains were gone. I miss them already.

Mom, they're wrong!
Liam discovered the play area early on, which probably limited his interest in the rest of the museum. He did realize, though, that they had put woolly mammoth toys in, which clearly do not belong since they came long after dinosaurs were extinct.

Triceratops
Obviously, the museum wasn't only about Tyrannosaurs.

Dinosaur skin
What did dinosaurs really look like? Was their skin feathered? Purple? No (because this is what skin looked like) and probably not.

Brontothere
It wasn't even all about reptiles.

Not snow
We were a bit confused to see all this salt, presumably being intentionally produced, east of Swift Current.