and a few steps more

Today we were off with Kathleen to Drumheller which is to the east of where we are staying. This is the prairie country, a land of few bumps and long straight roads.
Our first stop was Horseshoe Canyon, Canada's answer to the Grand Canyon. It may be smaller but is just as dramatic. The land was originally the sea bed and over millions of years deposits of mud, animal bones and vegetation built up in layers. The sea bed was pushed up at the sand time as the Rocky Mountains and during the last ice age the canyon was formed. The sides of the canyon show the layers as differently coloured rocks and mud.
One of the layers, that formed from the vegetation, was coal and the region was heavily mined. One mine that still exists as a heritage site is the Star Mine. To get to the mine it is necessary to cross the Red Deer river which is wide and very muddy using the 117 metre suspension bridge.
Our third stop was the Hoodoos Recreation Area. Hoodoos are stumps of rock, looking a bit like mushrooms. They are formed when a cap of hard sandstone protects the softer underlying rock from eroding as rapidly as the surrounding rock. Unfortunately these beautiful edifices are being destroyed by thoughtless people climbing all over them.
Our final stop was the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology located just outside Drumheller. It is considered the finest dinosaur museum in the world. The museum is named after Joseph Burr Tyrrell who in 1884 discovers the first dinosaur remains near Drumheller. The find, a skull, was of an undiscovered dinosaur and was given the name Albertosaurus. Many of the exhibits are of fossils found in Alberta. In addition to the extinct exhibits on glass wall opens onto a workshop where you can see technicians working of cleaning and preserving recently received fossils.
We managed to get off on our way home before a major thunderstorm broke over the area.
Only two more full days here before we have to return home.