Calgary Stampede and UNESCO Dinosaur Park

When in Rome........ yes we took ourselves off to the Calgary Stampede on 8 July. $40 for pretty good grandstand seats where we could watch all the usual rodeo events. The whole town goes crazy. There's line dancing in the mall, horse parades, both country AND western music everywhere, and other cowboy/girl events all around town. We had a ball!

We headed east to Brooks and home of the UNESCO Dinosaur Provincial park - proclaimed world heritage in 1980 because of the significant number of major dinosaur bones found everywhere. We left the tent poles at home so had to stay in town - a small town but like the rest of Alberta is booming (even found a whole telephone directory for the oil business!). Dinosaur Park is smack in the middle of the badlands - warnings about rattlesnakes everywhere! The info centre is particularly well done (just opened). It's been built to be super environmentally efficient and really worth a visit. We did a few short walks to some of the fossil finds (didn't see any rattlers thankfully!) Spectacular scenery and a terrific visit.