Drumheller

Friday was forecast for nice weather, so I took a vacation day. For some reason, had the badlands on my mind, possibly because of Mantracker, possibly not. Don't really know where to go hiking in the badlands other than Horseshoe canyon, so I went there. Of course, nooone to go with, so wandered alone. It was ok. Never been down into the canyon before. Very different from what I'm used to. So many steep "hills" around, can't tell what's around the next corner. If you let your imagination go, you feel you might come across a dinosaur, or a bandit hideout, or some human remains. Have to be a bit careful, so much undercut, and the ground often crumbly. But overall was fine and easy to get around. Sometimes quite neat to drop down some feet into a narrow dry creek. In general the area felt so lifeless, colourless and dry. But, actually lots of shrubs especially near the dried creeks. Sometimes walking over some, the fragrance of crushed herbs was quite pleasant. At one point, I was inspecting some tracks, suspecting they were deer, then minutes later crossed a ridge and saw a deer prancing up a slope and out of sight. Couldn't really pursue it. Felt like I wandered around for a some hours, but turned out closer to just two. The relentless strong wind when not sheltered tends to tire me out quickly.

Went into drumheller then, and went to the Tyrrell Museum. I think the last time I was there was in junior high on a school trip. So in a way I sortof didn't want to go in, hard to explain. But I did. It was great. I'm a little surprised the admission is only $10, I expected it would be much higher. I remember my favorite part long ago were the computers that let you design a dinosaur. So of course you tried to make the one mostly likely to make Darwin cry (and the game told you why it would never survive)... give it a big triceratops head on the end of a long thin brachiosaurus neck, with some stubby tyranosaurus front legs etc. Unfortunately I didn't find such a game this time. So today, my favorite part was the garden area... smelled so good, like hiking in the spring, not sure how to describe it, cool and fresh and clean/natural. As for museummy parts, lots are nice of course. Aquarium & underwater type areas felt peaceful. I should try to design a home like that.