Slowly traveling eastward

Traveling from ND into SD today seeing some of the following weird stuff


Prong horned antelope in a cornfield


Grasshopper about to eat Nita


40 foot tall ring neck pheasant


Monster farm family

Theodore Roosevelt National Park, Medora, ND

The park has a primitive campground about 5 miles up from the entrance on the Little Missouri River that flows through the park. Beyond the campground is a 20 some mile loop up and down through the Badlands in the park. We spent about 3 hours doing the loop while stopping to take pictures and taking some hikes.


4 prairie dog pups


Buffalo gorging on the yellow sweet clover


This rattler was on a hiking path that I first mistook for a buffalo chip


Badlands scenery in the park


Nita went to bed early and I took a walk, when I returned we had a visitor right behind our motorhome.

We got away from the loonies and came to our cents

Yesterday morning we departed Drumheller for Medicine Hat, Alberta. It rained all the way to MH, when we got there they said they were under a flood warning due to heavy rains north of there. We decided to pass the attractions at MH since it was raining and we didn't want to float down stream. Went straight south on a road called wild horse and crossed the border at wild horse into Montana. Spent all our loonies before leaving MH, the Canadian dollar is a coin with a loon on it, nicknamed a loony.

Wild horse road from MH to Havre, Montana was well over 120 miles with no fuel stations nor much of any thing else. What few homes there were were collapsing and abandoned, no power lines in sight, some cattle. It was kind of a weird scene like the movie North by Northwest where Cary Grant was out in the empty plains by himself and all of a sudden was attacked by and airplane. Fortunately we weren't attacked and had enough fuel to get to Havre. We were boarded by the US border patrol and they confiscated our tomatoes, I complained that they were US tomatoes we brought into Canada, they asked for proof, had none, bye bye tomatoes.


Wild Horse road, it goes on to infinity


Old abandoned church on wild horse road


Gertrude gopher bribed out of her burrow with cantaloupe


In the dinosaur town of Drumheller there was a different Dino on about every corner.

Dinosaurs at Drumheller, Alberta

After talking to a native in the Drumheller rv park last night he convinced us not to miss visiting the Royal Tyrrell Muesum. The title Royal means it was commissioned by the Queen who has visited there. If you are interested in fossils starting 730 million years ago this place is outstanding. Alberta geology is one of the many places very productive of fossils and dinosaurs. There is a large preparation lab here where workers are actively removing stone to reveal the imbedded creature.

I could have spent a few more hours there but my partner who hung in there for almost 3 hours had enough. We then took the 40km dinosaur trail loop requiring a ferry ride across the Red Deer River. Add in some shopping and doing some overdue laundry finds us in Drumheller for another nite. Will leave for somewhere in the morning.


This is a massive Museum with several floors


Preparation lab


Ammonites are extinct hard shelled, coiled, squid-like marine creature. This one is about 2 feet across and preserved in this manner are both fossil and gemstone.


I don't even come up to the 1st leg joint of this Dino


Terrain here that yields fossils and dinosaurs

Banff to Drumheller

We spent the morning roaming around Banff. It's location with the mountains and Bow river is stunning. The town keeps the place immaculate as do the home owners. It draws folks from around the world and lots of money flows in to keep it attractive. The Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel is a landmark and has almost 800 rooms.

We departed Banff and headed over to Calgary, the geography changes from mountains to plains. Calgary is a big city and as we got closer the traffic got congested and we decided we didn't want to fight it, so headed north east and ended up in Drumheller, why in the hell did we do that. The Canadian government has information offices scattered about the country designated by a ? mark, they are great, any thing you want to know about attractions, accommodations, etc, they can answer. You come away with maps, brochures, books and other stuff. Anyway, a lady at one office recommend Drumheller as the dinosaur capital of Canada. As we came in to town there are dinosaurs on every corner doing something, one was on a motorcycle. The one shown below at the Drumheller ? is reputed to be the largest one in the world. Another claim to fame for Drumheller is that Clint Eastwood made the movie Unforgiven in the area. So here we are camped out for the night in beautiful downtown Drumheller, not really, debating if we should visit the Royal Tyrrell Dinosaur museum tomorrow?


Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel. How would you like to raft down this white water, a good 15 feet drop just behind the center fir trees


There's that ? shown on the side of the info office. Big dude isn't he.

Misc photos

mountain goat motor home


Nita has a little trouble with the altitude and walking, as I walked up to the glacier she kept her eye on me with binoculars from the motorhome. Many years ago the glacier extended down to the parking lot.


Not sure what kind of deer this is, has a white tail and kind of stripes on his neck


Crow foot glacier with frozen lake below


Street scene in neat little Banff

Rockies continued

All of the animal photos were taken as we drove along, sometime we spot them in the woods and turn around, some come out and stand near the road and the long horn sheep will walk right down the road and pay no attention to humans or cars. Those who hike the trails see many more animals.

We stayed at the campground in Lake Louis last night, the tenting section is surrounded with an electric fence to discourage the grizzly bear, they can destroy tents if they want in. The section for hard sided trailers and motorhomes have no fence, one strolled through this morning. As we checked in this evening at the Banff campground they warned they had bears.


Spotted this grizzly about 40 feet off the road eating something in the grass, there was water in a ditch between us so felt kind of safe, he paid no attention to me.


Aqua colored glacial lake


This girl walked into this icy water in her sandals, asked if I could take her photo, said yes, then boyfriend wanted in the picture. Don't know how they could stand in that icy water.


Buck elk munching on some tender grass, his new antlers are still velvet


Long horned mountain Sheep oblivious of their dangerous situation