Day 16 – Carbon to Rosedale (T.D.: 56km; S.T. 3h38min)

An early morning hailstorm got the blood flowing today, as we all lay in our tents wishing hard that it would go away. Amazingly, it did, and the rest of the day turned out to be quite beautiful. This was fortunate, because otherwise it would’ve been quite uncomfortable for Ken to make us the stellar pancake breakfast that we all enjoyed heartily. Thanks Ken! If only you could be our personal chef the whole way across this great country.

We were in no hurry to leave, but eventually said our goodbyes, took to our respective vehicles, and got back on the road after this wonderful camping visit. Caroline and I had a short cycling day planned as we headed into Drumheller to do some genuine tourist stuff in the Canadian Badlands. This was a good thing, because the margaritas were, apparently, still flowing through the ol’ veins – making us somewhat groggy as we pedaled through a headwind on the way to the Red Deer River valley.

The entrance to the Badlands is marked by a sudden, dramatic descent that takes you from lush prairie landscape to an arid, Martian world of dry, dusty coulees, all grey-green sagebrush and sandy rock formations. Already, we were happy to have made the detour, which would add a highly distinctive flavour to the scenery mix.

South Dinosaur Trail was the roadway that would take us along the river into Drumheller, though our immediate destination was the Royal Tyrell Museum, a world-class establishment that houses some of the area’s most incredible fossil finds.

The Museum lies on North Dinosaur Trail, almost directly across the river from where we were standing, which left us with the choice of traveling upstream10km to the Bleriot ferry or downstream 10km to the bridge in Drumheller. Happily, we learned from a kind fellow in an SUV that we could cut the distance by taking our bikes across an unused trainbridge just a few kilometers away. This we did, pleased for an excuse to get off the saddle as we pushed our way over the tracks and then rode an easy distance to the museum.

The museum was a delight. Strange to park our bikes next to a sea of cars, and then melt into the crowd of tourists as we all navigated our way together through the different displays. The Badlands are renowned for their rich fossil deposits, and the dinosaur bones on show were hugely impressive. My favorite was probably Black Beauty, a Tyrannosaurus whose bones, stained black from minerals during their fossilization, were discovered by a couple of teenagers out fishing in southwestern Alberta. I wonder how many T. Rex’s I missed out on discovering because I never went fishing in southwestern Alberta as a teenager. We’ll never know. We spent a few hours at the museum and then decided to head into town for dinner. Drumheller itself is a sleepy, tourism-driven town, home to the largest fake dinosaur sculpture (it looks like it was made out of paper mache) in the world! You can climb to the top for a small fee, which, of course, we did not do (we’re on a budget here,

you know). We had a reasonably-filling meal at one of the few establishments open on a Sunday night, and then continued down the river towards our campground for the night in Rosedale. As we set up the tent, we could see flashes o lightning in the distance. The storm was also making its way down the river, and arrived in fine form sometime around midnight.

Stats:

Av. Spd.: 15.3km/h (I know, incredibly slow… the route was surprisingly hilly, and we did fight a headwind most of the day, not to mention the margarita effect mentioned above)

Mx. Spd.: 53.7km/h

Biggest actual disappointment: We didn’t stop in Wayne, Alberta, a ghost town that I had been looking forward to visiting. It would’ve involved a 15km detour on, we were told, gravel roads, so we decided to skip it. Luckily, we made it to East Coulee the next day, which is another ghost town.

Biggest surprise: Apparently, the Albertosaurus has been renamed “Gorgosaurus”. Who thought that was a good idea?

Hoodoo sightings: 2 tiny ones near the museum.

Funny stats to report: None today, I guess.