TIME FOR GOODBYE

Sniff, sniff....they just left!  The Dear One is driving them to the airport for their flight home.  It was a wonderful visit.  I enjoyed them so much!  But a whole week has gone by and now it's time for them to leave again.

Usually the "goodbye" picture is taken by their car, all packed up and ready to go.  But this time the DSIL had to stay home for work reasons, and they didn't drive.  So here's an indoor goodbye picture, and that actually works better--no one's squinting into the sun.

Goodbye and God Bless!  For another year.

One of the sad things in my life is that we never have and probably never will live close to growing grandkids.  Some things in life are just the way they are and have to be accepted!

We did have another nice day out together yesterday.  We went to the Royal Tyrell Museum in Drumheller--the Dinosaur museum.  On the way we took a little detour through the country in order to cross the Red Deer River on this little ferry.  The kids had never been on a ferry before.  About 45 years ago the Dear One and I crossed with this ferry.  I should dig out the old slide of the ferry to compare with this new one.

The trip is SHORT!!!  Just 344 feet.  The kids comment was, "Why not just build a bridge?"  I mentioned this to the nice young man operating the ferry and he replied, "No one would come here if there were a bridge."  He's probably right.  We came just to give the kids a "ferry experience."

The weather was beautiful, the drive was enjoyable and the countryside looked quite lush, considering this is Alberta and the middle of August!

I had been to the dinosaur museum a few times already.  In fact, way back in the '70's the Dear One and I visited it when it was in a small building long before this "world-class" museum was built.

There were many exhibits I hadn't seen before and everything is very well done, but I have a few negative comments, and probably wouldn't have noticed these things except for our recent visit to the Telus Spark Science Centre in Calgary.

First: there aren't nearly enough ladies' washrooms.  There are just two washrooms for women in the museum, and there are long lineups whenever you want to use them.  They need at least twice the washroom capacity.

Second: The museum is laid out in one very long continuous gallery.  That's not very family friendly!  The Science Centre has all separate but connected galleries, so you can go from one to another, or you can return to the centre atrium.  The Tyrell does not have a central atrium, just a rather modest (considering the number of visitors) space beyond the entry kiosks.

Then when you want to take a break for lunch you need to finish walking through, go to the cafeteria and then try to re-enter against the traffic flow, unless you want to repeat the whole journey through the long, winding gallery.  The two grandkids were going to go ahead of DD. and myself, and were stopped by a "traffic police" and told they were not allowed to enter unless they showed proof of payment.  We were not each given a pass, we had just one for the whole "family."  So they came back and waited for us.  That could be dealt with in a better way.

And then lastly a minor "quibble": everyone must exit through the gift shop.  I rather object to that in principle, as it seems a little too pushy to me.  But just practically, it created a real traffic jam, as there was only a narrow aisle between displays.  Someone was trying to push a wheelchair through and had a tough time of it.  Someone else was walking with a cane and also could hardly manage the congestion.

I guess that was not "lastly" as I have one more comment: It's not really a good outing for young children.  Once a three year old has seen a few dinosaur skeletons, they've had enough.  They are just not good for two or three hours of the same.  There are no interactive displays, and I can understand why, so there really is nothing for the young ones to do.  The newer beginning area of the museum was a very "intellectual" display that children under 12 would not relate to at all.

It is a really excellent dinosaur museum, but it's really not a "kid-space."  There were quite a few unhappy children there--a complete contrast to the Telus Spark Science Centre in Calgary.