Our brush with Royalty – Royal Tyrell Museum
….AND MORE DINOSAURS…..
Awoke early in the morning and packed up ready to head on our next adventure…. Drumheller and the Royal Tyrell Museum in Drumheller. Royal patronage was bestowed upon the museum in 1990. (I suppose this is technically our 2nd brush with royalty. While in Ottawa for Canada Day, we were apparently in proximity to Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall’s procession onto parliament hill. This was unbeknownst to us, as we were too short to see past the hoards of people.)
A short drive from Dinosaur Provincial Park, our Drumheller destination found us yet again amongst civilization….. Gas stations, grocery stores, restaurants, AND coffee shops….because you know the latter gets some of us (ahem..) through the early rushed mornings.
A quick set up at Dino RV Park right in town and a quick lunch on the go and we were off to the Royal Tyrell Museum. A dynamite location for any dino fan! We arrived just in time to catch our Dinosite tour.
A prospecting we will go….
Water bottled filled, water misters (absolutely critical when summer temperatures, no shade and midday adventures are planned) and hats, we were ready for our trek with 25 people and our guide. Into the badlands behind the museum, we walked for about 15 minutes to a microsite. These are sites where little fossils have fallen out of the hills as erosion has permitted. We were taken through a mini lesson on fossils and how they came to be and how to decipher the various rocks in the area from actual fossils of plants and animal or actual dino bones.
A half hour of prospecting and our group yielded: dinosaur fossilized bones, petrified wood, petrified clam shells, amber (not the kind from Jurrasic Park, which by the way could never happen as we were informed that DNA couldn’t possible survive the millions of years since the dinosaurs roamed the earth) and deer bones, not the prehistoric kind but the modern day kind.
RUSTY
After our fruitful prospecting hunt, we meandered through the badlands once again for about 5 minutes and stopped at an in-situ dinosaur bone site. Duck-billed dinosaurs (the name escapes me… for shame….) are the most plentiful dinosaur found in Dinosaur Provincial Park and as such, they left this one in-situ as it was also covered in iron ore (which is very difficult to remove and hence the nickname for the dino). And it allows us lay-people a glimpse of what the archeologists must come across when they first find a dig site. Pretty cool!
Back from our trek through the badlands in searing heat, our first stop was to the water bottle filling station and a quick break in the cafeteria to replenish our spent energy. We then made our way through the actual museum which took us through the science of dinosaurs, the impact of construction/excavation and discoveries uncovered, and the history through the ages up to the present of dinosaurs! A very informative and entertaining walkabout… and along the way, lots of buttons, toggles, games, and things for our little ones to get excited over.
Once the museum walk was over, on we went to the kids favorite part of the day, the outdoor dino playground. The playground not only wow’d the kids but the big kids too. It was what you’d typically find in an indoor playground but it was outdoors! Along with a giant sandpit complete with the requisite dino to excavate! While the little kids played to their heart’s content, the big kids watched the humorous little ground squirrels run amok! They were everywhere and obviously not that afraid of people!
