traxis on the run

Went camping this weekend with our friends at Dinosaur Provincial Park - it was a great time. We had wonderful weather, and although we were a bit late driving out, we got there in pretty good time. We set up and then talked with our friends. They had already made a bunch of plans and although we were welcome to join them on any event, it was unfortunate that we didn't discuss these together and plan our trip out more. In fact a lot of the weekend was like that - a sort of passive-agressive way of saying, "I want to do X, and [knowing that we didn't really want to do that] you can join us if you like, or you can do nothing, whatever" which made us feel like we were being lazy or something. We weren't - I just don't want to be as busy on my weekends as I am during my weeks, I want to relax and enjoy my time.

Anyhow, we did do quite a bit. Chris and I finished the last trail that we hadn't seen before - there were some fantastic, huge, cottonwood trees. We also got to see a many excelent sunsets. We got to see Mars with Chris' telescope, amongst other things, because the nights were SO clear and we could see the milky way, everything.

We went hiking on some of the hoodoos, and had some campfires. Slept in, had yummy pancakes and lots of fun. We did do a bus tour where we got to go deep into the preserved area. The ground is just littered with dinosaur bones, you can't walk 50 feet without coming on to another bone bed. We also got to go into the preparation lab where they work on fossils and got to ask questions without a tour group, and even touch and pick up fossils and stuff. Quite cool.

On the way back, our friends took off early, for some wierd reason, but that was okay because we wanted to take a more scenic route home, and stop at the Atlas Coal Mine museum. It was a really great little museum, with a tour up the only remaining coal tipple (like a silo) in Canada, or maybe North America. We then went to the Royal Tyrell Museum, which is just fantastic. After which, we head home, and got another amzing sunset. Got home kinda late, had Timmy's for dinner, and then just took the cooler out and went to bed. Very relaxing, good, fun weekend.

posted by traxis @ 10:03 p.m.