Dinosaur Provincial Park

The next morning we headed east to our rendezvous with Cathy and Rick in Brooks, AB.

We missed the Calgary bypass so drove right through downtown Calgary, stopping at every traffic light. To top it off we got a speeding ticket but we didn't find out about that till we got the ticket in the mail back home.  The city was eerily quiet because it was Saturday of the Canada Day weekend.

Rick and Cathy got there before us and found a campsite at Emerson Bridge Regional Park.  It was hopping on the long weekend but we got a very spacious spot in the overflow section.

Happy sibling reunion

We hauled out our new ebikes and rode down to the Red Deer River and around the campground.

We had some great birding here as well. We were excited to see a brown thrasher, an eastern bird we haven't seen since we were in Arkansas in 2013.

Great bird, poor photo

The next morning we drove to Dinosaur Provincial Park.

It's flat, man

I've always wanted to see this park and it did not disappoint.  It's a world heritage site after all.

We hiked the Badlands Trail.

With spectacular views

And interesting formations,

Saw rabbits

And some desert birds, like the lark sparrow

And the rock wren.

They had several fossil displays, like this recreation of a bonebed excavation.

And an in-situ display of the nearly complete skeleton of a hadrosaur,

Also known as the duck-billed dinosaur

But where is the duck bill?

It's headless though so who knows if it's duck billed or not.