Blog
Drumheller
September 05, 2022 to September 17, 2022I'm in Calgary now and I have a choice, I either run back to the rockies as fast as I can because... mountains... or! I can go explore the Alberta badlands, I decided to take a week to see the badlands :) Started my day off right with sudoku, coffee, and breakfast. And even got to try out my new fun hose at the first campsite :D
The first stop was Horseshoe Canyon, it's a short stroll into the bottom, but a unique landscape I haven't seen before!
I arrived in Drumheller and there was some sort of theme to this area I couldn't quite put my finger on 🤔.
I stayed the night behind this little church, there was a pretty surprising steady flow of people stopping to look at it, who knew roadside attractions could be small!
While in Drumheller, a stop at Royal Tyrrell Museum is a must, I always get disappointed when the bones are replicas (though I understand why they do it) but this museum had lots of real fossils on display!
Now off to the next canyon! This one apparently stole everyone's horses... rude.
Continuing north, and crossing the river I took the shortest ferry ride I've ever seen. This picture is before we started moving
Next stop was Torrington for a very specific and important reason, the gopher hole museum!
This town took the gopher theme seriously and had all of their fire hydrants painted as gophers, there was a little booklet that described all of them and gave their backstories so you could walk around town as a self guided tour. There was even a tale of baby Jesse who went missing for a year and then showed up on the museums doorstep!
The gopher hole museum was a series of taxidermy gopher dioramas, they were all made by the community members contributing different pieces. I've included a small selection here, but go... you must go here :D
Headed back to Drumheller, I stopped by a viewpoint of the Orkney Valley
Hoodoos! Continuing south from Drumheller, I stopped by the hoodoo trail which has some spectacular landscape.
Walking around I also found what I think are concretions, round rock formations, so cool!
I stayed the night here and woke up to explore the hoodoos a little more in the morning before heading out.
I went to Wayne, mostly for the novelty of needing to cross 11 bridges to get there... I know how to have fun!
Another tour, I went to the Atlas coal mine. There were only two of us on the tour, and the other guy was also living in a van and had started in Quebec! We were also both heading to Calgary next, so we met up at a campground on the way to have a fire and chat.
I finally mounted a gift of Vern's measurements. This is really handy when going under bridges so I don't have to remember if I can pass under them :)
and the final sunset in Alberta, I'm heading to BC next!
