Day 1 for Reunion

Despite the fuss of the night before, the day started off reasonably well.  Since Drumheller is due for one of the few days of rain they ever get, we decided to have an indoor activity planned.  We debated a few of the options and decided on the Royal Tyrell Museum of Paleontology.  It's a pretty neat museum and even has some cinema connections, they were consulted for the Jurassic Park movies.

Nathan did a very rapid tour of the museum.  It was smaller than I remembered, but the exhibits were still amazing.  They've got an enlargement of creatures from the Burgess Shale, which is over 200 million years old.  I kept pointing out the fossils to Nathan but he mostly wanted to run on to the next thing.

One thing he did enjoy was an interactive display about pollenation.  They had giant flowers with vacuum tubes and you could shoot ball through the tubes to see if they landed in other flowers.  It was an awesome idea.

After the museum, we went for a drive in the surrounding hills.  Avi told us a little about the town, things he'd heard from his Opa and mother.  Drumheller rivalled Calgary as a bustling town back in 1912.  The mining industry was huge.  Opa had to choose between the two and decided on Drumheller since he thought Calgary would never amount to anything.

We had a quiet afternoon to prepare the boys for the Meet and Greet dinner that evening.  Memee and Avi took Alex to their hotel and Nathan and Shelby went swimming.  Dave and I took a much needed nap.

The Meet and Greet went well.  Alex remembered his manners, replying "I am good" when people asked how he was.  They were both really excited to see their aunt Avril, my sister.

The dinner was great: real Alberta beef.  I'm a beef snob and there's nothing like the texture and flavour of the real deal.  Nathan only ate a buttered bun and some fruit and Alex ate the food I'd brought for him.  The community center had an elevator and that's where Alex wanted to spend most of his time.  Nathan was feeling quite shy and didn't want to talk to anyone too unfamiliar.  He got tired and went home with Dave and Shelby.  Dave came back to get Alex and I afterwards.

Most of the rest of the family went on to the Last Chance Saloon, a bar owned by some of our family members.  It's minorly famous in Alberta.  They used to have a horse who loved beer and would come up to a special window and stamp her hoof to order a pint.

This time we were prepared for Alex to go to bed.  I put on the Weather Network on mute and told him he could watch it as long as he was quiet.  He did pretty well.  I only had to remind him a few times and he was asleep before the sleep timer ran out.