The first outing I had planed for Alice's visit was a trip to Drumheller and the Alberta badlands which is about an hour and half north east of Calgary. It's a nice drive through open prairie grassland and the occasional anabaptist colony when suddenly, and utterly unexpectedly, the road dives down into the deep Red Deer valley.

People come to Drumheller for two reasons. First is the mysterious badland geography, with sudden canyons with romantic names like Horseshoe and Horsethief, and also the famous Hoodoos (which Alice insisted on calling Hoo Hoo Dillys)

The other reason is dinosaurs. The canyons and valleys of the area have proved to be fertile bonebeds and there are brightly painted concrete dinosaurs on practically every street corner. The main draw in town however is The World's Largest Dinosaur! Alice and I drove around trying to locate it when suddenly we spotted its fearsome head looming over the neighbouring houses. The terror.. the terror


The local advertising promises that you climb stairs into "the actual mouth". How could we resist...


There is more serious palaeontology on offer at the nearby Royal Tyrrell Museum which is really fantastic. I'd love to have gone there as a 7 year old in the midst of my dinosaur fixation but even 30 years later it was brilliant. They had a number of dinosaurs I'd never heard of including the Albertasaurus: a local version of the T. Rex that everyone's very proud of!