I was very excited to complete this challenge as I have
flown across the world but never visited another province in my own country.
Earlier this year Corey suggested driving to Alberta to take me to the Royal Tyrrell
Museum of Paleontology. Needless to say the trip was fantastic. The drive,
however, was the longest I’ve ever been on. About ~10 hours there and the same
back again. Corey and I joked that it was funny that it takes a day to drive to
another province when it only takes us 10 minutes to get to another country. We
took a number of breaks throughout the drive and I ended up taking nearly 500
photos between the camera I brought and my phone. The drive through BC was very
scenic as always and the trans-Canada highway leads to some spectacular sights
as you drive through the mountains. I was hoping (and expecting) a big sign
that said WELCOME TO ALBERTA and kept my eyes peeled so we could stop and take
a picture to post in this blog but the pass through into the province was very
uneventful aside from some construction that lead us to a grinding halt for a
few minutes. We got to drive THROUGH mountains and over lakes and rivers. It
was nothing short of amazing.
One thing I was very excited about the drive was passing
through Alberta’s national park, Banff. It really was as beautiful as everyone
says it is. Huge mountains with crazy peaks and valleys. My photos don’t do this national treasure any
justice. It was nothing short of
stunning and I was blown away by just how big these mountains are. Folks weren’t
lying when they said it was a tourist hotspot. We saw license plates from all
across the states. Wyoming, Ohio, Kansas and even Texas! Now THAT’S a long
drive! I took about half a billion photos of Banff before we passed through and
got to the boring flats one would normally associate with the prairies. We were hosted by two friends who moved the
Calgary three months back and it was great to see them again. On Sunday we drove out to the Alberta
badlands which took us through endless hay fields that stretched on in either
direction. We stopped a few times to take some pictures and good god there must
be as many crickets as they are blades of grass out there. As boring as the
flatlands are, they are damn noisy!
Driving into Drumheller was so cool. I have never seen
landscape anything like that! Drumheller was a lot of fun. They have dinosaur
statues everywhere! Gas stations, markets, on the corner of intersection.
Dinosaur banners, stores, hotels! They are really making it as the dinosaur
capital of Canada. I was so stoked to go to the museum. As a kid I was
absolutely obsessed with dinosaurs. I loved them more than I can explain,
wanted to be a paleontologist and would have died to go to the museum as a kid.
Needless to say I was still amped and ready to go. I took a crap ton of
pictures and saw a number of near complete t-rex skeletons. My favorite even
though I’ve a new appreciation for Ceratopsidaes
(Triceratops, centrosaurus etc). They are just so damn cool looking. I took a
ton of pictures of skulls and complete skeletons and I will be trying some
drawing and getting basic anatomy down as I really need to practice that. Standing
next to the complete skeletons was awe inspiring. It was crazy just how big
some of these creatures got. I could have spent another hour in there just
reading everything. I was absolutely enthralled. Loved it!
We journeyed back to
Calgary and spotted Grainger road! In the middle of flipping nowhere but we had
to stop for a picture. The rest of our
Calgary experience was pretty relaxed. We stopped at IronCross Mills mall half
an hour before it closed which was a bummer cause that place is damn huge and I
would have minded to explore it a bit but I guess my wallet is thankful that
the place closed early for the holiday. 
Our Calgary
adventure was short but sweet and Monday morning at the crack of dawn we began
our very long drive home. We stopped at the last spike railway monument and found a tiny little gift shop were I got myself an awesome Canada flag t-shirt. Awesome. In all it was an amazing experience. 2 provinces down 6 more (and three territories) to go!
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