Alberta - Day 6

I believe I have discovered the solution to any farmer's drought problems - build an amusement park near your farm and have my kids come by to go on the rides.  Guaranteed thunderstorm.

This was our last day in Calgary and we spent it at Heritage Park.  The morning was pretty quiet, as we packed up and said our good-byes and then drove out to the Park.  We wandered in and took the train around to the town, which we explored for a bit before realizing we would need to stop for lunch.  The biggest excitement of the morning occurred as we headed to a picnic spot, when we stopped in the blacksmith shop.  The kids spend over half an hour watching a blacksmith prepare and heat up two pieces of metal so that he could weld them together by smashing them with a hammer.  Even I thought it was pretty cool.

After lunch, we explored the rest of the park, but ended up making a quick detour to the old time amusement rides, as we could see a storm approaching.  We went on three rides and were preparing to go on a fourth, with Bradley wanting to go back on the first, when the rides were all shut down due to the storm.  Bradley was not impressed and cried most of the way back to the car.  We called it quits at that time as it was raining a decent amount and we weren't really prepared for rain.

Then it was time for a very stressful drive to Three Hills, which was the closest spot to Drumheller that we could find a hotel for the night.  Rush hour in Calgary is annoying, but Google Maps made it worse, by bailing on the main highways as soon as it determined they were busy.  It routed us way out of town onto a secondary highway and then back onto the main highway, at which point I ignored it and just drove around until we reached highway 2.

The traffic between Calgary and Edmonton was awful.  Three packed lanes of cars.  It was a relief when we were able to finally take a secondary highway east to Three Hills.  We arrived, checked in to our hotel and then went to a local grill for supper, which was very, very good.  Sometimes small town restaurants are the best restaurants.

Tomorrow we are off to see the dinosaurs.