We like natural history. We also like riding our motorcycles. Today we put the two together.

We’re in Drumheller, Alberta. It’s where you want to be for anything dinosaur in Canada. Drumheller is home to the world famous Royal Tyrrell Museum of Paleontology, a treasure trove of dinosaur fossils from the area. As I write I are am sitting on top of one of the largest fossil deposits in the world. That’s not hyperbole. Dinosaur fossils are pulled from the ground around here almost daily. The Royal Tyrrell Museum is a natural offshoot of that embarrassment of riches.

To make this experience even better, there’s an hour long ride here called the Dinosaur Trail. It’s a loop out west of Drumheller, past the museum, across the Bleriot ferry (M. Bleriot for whom the ferry is named is supposedly the brother of M. Louis Blériot who was first to fly across the English Channel in an airplane), and back east again into town. It promised to be an exciting day.

We rolled into Drumheller late yesterday afternoon to get our camp set up for two nights of hanging. We’re both using our DutchWare Halfwits on this trip and are sleeping comfortably. Great hammocks are the best! With our camp set and some food in us we endured the hot muggy weather until it was time for bed. Oh, and we endured the bugs. We’re both likely down a pint of blood on this trip. The mosquitoes and black flies have been terrible! 

This morning we did what is now our usual eggs and coffee then we were on the road to the museum. It was a ten minute ride from our campsite. Perfect! We rolled in at about 10:30 am and started our tour at about 11 am after another coffee… I needed to be awake for this. Four hours, two camera batteries, and one lunch later we walked out. Awestruck. The public displays at the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Paleontology are stunning. We have a trove of pictures to go through. Rest assured that we’ll post the best here. There may be some curating of our own to create a slide show. The highlights for me were Black Beauty and the Burgess Shale section. I really don’t have the words to describe what we saw. The pictures will have to talk for us.

After leaving the museum we went on our ride around the Dinosaur trail. We were told that it’s a popular ride among motorcyclists and I can see why. The road lazily winds along the north side of the Red Deer River along the valley floor. It climbs to the Prairie above for a bit, passing through fields of canola, before dropping back down to the river and the Bleriot ferry. You cross the river on the old cable ferry apt make your way along the south side of the river, again up to the Prairie and back down into the valley. With two lookout points visited and an easy pace the entire ride was just over an hour. It was a great way fit finish the day

It’s time to make dinner so off we go. Tomorrow is Kananaskis where we’ll say goodbye to Alberta and roll onto home soil.

DES out.