Trip to the Drum

The final leg of the journey with dear spanish friends was a trip to the badlands and the dinosaur museum that gets better and better every time I go there (okay that's more than 5 years apart but anyway...). By then we were a little sick of each other, they were already thinking about all the things they were going to have to do when they arrived home, I was tired of all the driving and they were tired of always being passengers, they were feeling I was doing too much for them and I was wishing they'd just realize that this is standard behaviour here and not some neediness or desire to overcompensate for something on my part.

A 4 hour drive, at the end of which was an incredibly long long 23 km stretch of road construction. It was everything being done on such a large scale that I began to feel like I was dreaming. Finally the descent into the valley and sudden arrival in the dinosaur statue filled town.

At this point I was starting to wonder if I should have brought them on this long journey for the museum and hopefully the suspension bridge and the hoodoos (sadly we only made it to the first item, whereas the last is my favourite). Continuing to feel that I was a third wheel and wishing there were others there just to balance things out. Happy because I finally had an excuse to get back to this place.

And then they really seemed to enjoy the museum. So much so that we had to go back in to get A so we wouldn't be late arriving in cowtown. I enjoyed the museum too which was great because my recollection of it was that it was exhausting to go through.

Leaving was rushed and as always the view of the town and surrounding canyons disappears very suddenly so it seems that it was a mirage. Dreaming continued through a most amazing landscape of rolling hills, the perfect light of late afternoon sun, the blinding yellow of canola fields, green so light it was like Spring grass, and blue blue sky.

When I think of this visit that I've dreamed about for years, which was incredibly intense in some ways and very easy and natural in others, it's this last drive that I think of: Both of them sleeping or close to it, all of us feeling the closing of the journey, and me driving through a simple landscape that managed to surpass all of the mountain, glacier, bear cub, waterfall, iceberg views. No photos since I was driving but it's so clear in my mind's eye as I write this, I'm sure you can see it too.