Of dinosaurs and 'bad land'

The Dinosaur Provincial Park is relatively small but no less worth seeing and also free of charge. As one of the most significant dinosaur fossil sites in the world and due to its impressive badlands (i.e., land that is very infertile and therefore 'bad' due to erosion since the last Ice Age), the park is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. After arriving at the park following our multi-day adventures, we treated ourselves to a free shower before embarking on one of the park's five smaller trails through the badlands. The badlands are mostly made up of sandstone, occasionally interspersed with small caves or holes and occasionally take on amusing forms. In this unreal but still beautiful landscape, you can really imagine how the dinosaurs marched through there (although during the time of the dinosaurs, it actually looked completely different, namely without the badlands :D). Since it had rained again that day, the ground was almost clay-like and slippery, which made walking considerably more difficult (our shoes looked like mud afterward, and the stuff wouldn't come off at all). Two glass structures were conveniently built at two locations in the park to allow for the examination of dinosaur fossils.

Our next day also revolved around dinosaurs. In Drumheller, we visited the Royal Tyrrell Museum, which exhibits fossils from the Dinosaur Provincial Park and from around the world. There are even fully preserved dinosaur skeletons, in part. The most impressive—and also the most dramatically staged—is a complete T-Rex skeleton, with its head protruding from the rock in which it was found (although a replica has been used in place of the actual skull due to its weight). Overall, the museum is very interesting and worth seeing (while the burgers in the cafeteria, on the other hand, will more likely cause stomach aches). After our visit to the museum, we continued to Calgary, where we spent the night in a Walmart parking lot.

The next day, we drove into the city. Due to time constraints (we wanted to arrive at our campsite on time in the evening), we parked very close to the city center, which is very expensive, especially since the parking meter cheats you out of the parking duration. First, we went to the Calgary Tower to get an overview of the city. However, it is nowhere near as impressive as the view and feeling from the CN Tower in Toronto, partly because the Calgary Tower is surpassed by other skyscrapers. After that, we started our quick tour of the city, where we managed to snag a free lunch at Olympic Plaza (which ultimately made up for the parking fees 😉). There was an event there to raise awareness about food waste. Several stands were giving out really delicious meals that were all made from donated food that was left over from farmers' markets or supermarkets. In Stephen Avenue, a small, beautiful pedestrian zone, we listened to a jazz band playing there for a while. We then walked back to the car through Prince's Island Park to continue driving to our campsite just before Waterton Lakes National Park in the southern Rockies.