Back in the early days of her policing career, DH worked with a significant number of dinosaurs so she was eager to explore the former dinosaur playground in Drumheller. Theoretically this area holds abundant evidence (including a treasure trove of fossils) around the extinction of dinosaurs, but DH is convinced that many of them (including the relatively small brained Testosteronasaurus) survived the ice age. Many palaeontologists might argue that the sense of humour of a dinosaur started and finished with body noises which, again, would support DH's argument that extinction nor evolution has happened in all species.

On the other hand, the sense of humour of the good denizens of Drumheller has evolved well beyond flatulence, and they've spread fibreglass dinosaurs all over town and, when we were there, they were just removing knitted wool overalls that had been custom fit to the statues. Not sure if they were trying to protect these dinosaur replicas from road salt damage or if they were trying to keep them warm through a cold Alberta winter. They've also built a life-sized T Rex and you can climb through the intestinal tract up into the mouth for a spectacular view of the nearby parking lot.

The Alberta Badlands surround Drumheller and it makes for a bizarre Mars landscape at the edge of the flat Prairie wheat fields. The Dinosaur Provincial Park was designated a UN Heritage Site in 1979 partly on the basis of its spectacular badlands, the largest in Canada. Badlands form where weak, relatively unconsolidated sedimentary rocks such as shale, siltstone and poorly cemented sandstone are exposed to vigorous erosion processes. They tend to occur in arid or semiarid regions such as southern Alberta, where rain often falls in short, torrential convectional storms. In prehistoric times, much of this area was a lush subtropical habitat embracing a vast inland sea- this is where the dinosaurs roamed 70 million years ago. Fast forward to present-day central and southern Alberta and their abundant bones/fossils now rest in ancient riverbeds, framed by the maroon-striped canyons of the mysterious Canadian Badlands.

Outside of dino's and badlands, there are quite a few things to see and do in Drumheller. We stopped in at the abandoned Atlas Coal Mine for yet another mine tour. DH was bored and dragging her feet but I was having a great time reminiscing until it dawned on me that all of the antiquated equipment on display at this turn-of-the-century mine was equipment I used in my mining days. Does this make me a museum piece?? I used to go to museums to explore ancient history- now I’m seeing myself in some of the displays!! What’s next? Prune juice every morning?

We had a great time exploring wild landscapes, old mining sites, a faded prospectors town, a world renown dinosaur museum, and the town of Drumheller itself. Despite my earlier comment, DH wanted to make it clear that she wasn't painting all of her early male colleagues with the dinosaur brush particularly her beloved training officer, Daveosaurus B.