Summer Vacation, pt. 4

DINOSAURS ARE COOL

We broke camp in the morning and were on our way to visit the Royal Tyrell Museum. This museum is well worth the price of admission. If you are planning a trip to Canada, you MUST make the time to go there, even if you don't have any kids. In fact, it might be more fun for you if you didn't bring your kids. I almost nixed the idea of going there at all because we were having such a hard time finding it -- it too is way out in the boonies. But they built the museum near the site where they found the fossils and you get the feeling that if you just dig in the dirt a little bit, you will find a T-Rex fossil staring back at you.

We knew we were close just because we were seeing huge fake resin dinosaurs hocking anything from french fries and burgers to tires and turds. That last bit was a strange little sign we saw at a convenience store next to a filling station. "Turds: $3.99." We were thinking that turds in Canada were really expensive. We just make our own. For free. And occasionally use them as housewarming gifts.

Anyway, the drive was pretty cool, except all that new oil money out in Canada has made the big road projects affordable, and the Canadians are wasting no time. We drove through miles (oops, I mean kilometers) of dusty gravel roads because they were resurfacing and widening everything. The kids really enjoyed seeing the huge earth moving machines and the graders. When there wasn't road construction, we were traveling through some of the juiciest bug swarms in the country. It was GROSS. That really did continue for the rest of the trip. They were splattered on our windshield, our luggage box, the front grill, -- just everywhere. And when we were parked, the wasps would swarm around the carcasses of these bugs and chow down. How's that for yummy? I guess the ones smashed over the engine were cooked too so I can almost understand that. Even wasps want variety in food preparation.

When we left there, we went off to find a hotel for the night -- further north of course. We ended up at the Norseman Inn. My son rated this hotel as a 4 star hotel. The beds were super comfy. I don't know if it was comfy by comparison to the gravel ground or just comfy because they were inherently comfy. But it was nice and clean so I was glad for it.

POUTINE

Our next stop was thankfully Cindy & Gerry's house in McClennan. I suspect that if anybody from McClennan stumbles on this blog, they will know exactly who Cindy and Gerry are. It is that small of a town.

On our way to Cindy & Gerry's house, we stopped by an A&W Express. It was there that we were introduced to a Canadian delicacy called poutine. It is french fries and cheese curds smothered with brown gravy. That is the flavor of the gravy-- brown. Very salty but pretty tasty. The kids had been just awful in the car. There was screaming alternated with crying and the shouts of, "Stop (touching, looking at, copying, etc.) me!" So when we stopped at the A&W, my husband said, "Let's get floats but none for the kids since they've been so awful." I decided that wouldn't be fair because they had no idea that consequence was even a possibility. So I got them small rootbeer shakes with their food. My husband told them to thank me for letting them have a treat. But then I laid down the law.

"I'm pretty sure that you can survive on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. There is protein, fat, and carbohydrates all rolled up in one sandwich. It would not be neglect to feed you nothing but peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for the rest of the trip. And should you continue to scream, cry, and fight with each other in the back seat, you will have nothing to eat but peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. If you're hungry -- pb & j. If your aunt prepares a feast for us, you get pb & j. If we're all having a dessert of ice cream and cake -- you get pb & j. Do you understand the consequence of more fighting in the back seat?"

They were angels for the rest of the ride to Cindy's house. Praise God. And thanks to pb & j.