Day 7 – Jurassic Park, Alberta (Kidding…Dinosaur Provincial Park)

Day 7 – Jurassic Park, Alberta (Kidding…Dinosaur Provincial Park)

Oh my! A dinosaur almost crushed us on the hiking trail! We almost died! But we were too good for them. So we ran for our lives. :D Just kidding with ya. We did see a lot of fossils though.

This morning started off a bit slow. But as the morning went on, we seemed to wake up. Especially since we left for the hike at around 10:00 a.m. after having a delicious beans and wieners breakfast. There was some mouthwatering hot chocolate as well.

The first trail we went on was right beside the visitor centre that we visited yesterday. It was the Coulee Viewpoint Trail. The trail was 0.9 km, and the average person can finish it in 45 minutes. However, the hikers being us…we took about two hours. We read all of the informational signs, and took a great many pictures. Most of the pictures were of us climbing the hills. These hills were sometimes very steep, and the popcorn rocks made it difficult. (Popcorn rocks are dried mudstone that cracks and forms ‘popcorn’ shaped pebbles.) They crumble very easily, and gave us quite a few scares many times as the ground almost gave way beneath our feet!

The scenery was simply mind-blowing! From on top of some of these hills, it is utterly silent, save for the quiet breeze and the sound of your own heartbeat. It is perfect tranquility; absolute peace bonding your being to the Earth and sky, right at the edge of the world.

(Hey East kids! The scenery here is totally epic and incites all sorts of inspirational emotions! I bet Eastern Canada can’t do that! Jealous much?)

It rained a little, not even enough to be considered rain. But everything was going great until… (Insert dramatic gasp here) an unforeseen accident. One of us sprained our ankle, and couldn’t go on. However, everyone reacted quickly and calmly, and we were able to move them to a safe location. Thus, beginning our impromptu first aid lecture. Then, it turned out our victim (Jenn, which is me :D), was totally fine! The whole thing was staged! xD But it showed that our reactions are quick and our teamwork is strong, and highly effective. (Jenn: I have awesome acting skills!)

We came back to our campsite for a quick break. We ate a very light lunch consisting of fruits like peaches, as well as carrots, and Oreos for energy.

After eating, we left again to go hiking in the opposite direction than the other trail. This trail was called the Badlands Trail. It was definitely tougher; it was longer and the terrain was different. Mosquitoes literally ate us alive at one section, right before we reached the fossil display. The display was of a centrosaurus bone bed. As soon as we reached a particularly rocky section off of the road, the sky darkened and the wind picked up significantly. Billy estimated the wind speeds to be near 70 km per hour, with gusts up to 100 km! We had to sit down at one point to avoid being blown over!

We got back late in the afternoon, so we showered quickly, just like last night. We have to pay $2 for 5 minutes of showering time. So we showered military style. It was like a processing line. One person goes in, wets their hair, comes back out and shampoos while the next person goes in, and then we keep rotating to wash, shampoo, and rinse. We were actually able to have four people shower within 7 minutes! (We’re actually very proud of that fact! :D)

We saw shooting stars last night, well at least for those of us that managed to stay up that late. Hopefully we’re able to see them again tonight. We’re heading to Calgary tomorrow for one last day of civilization before we head out into the Rocky Mountains!

We’re still getting eaten alive by mosquitoes, however, we should be fine with Edwin here…they’ll eat him first :D So the rest of us should be okay.