Drumheller Bike Ride

Friday, July 12, 2013

Promised to be a beautiful day, sunny with a nice breeze, wonderful day for a bike ride. From the campground it was a short ride to the community center where we picked up the trail that followed the Red Deer River.

Drumheller was not left out of the problems caused by the recent rains (the same rains that flooded Calgary), parts of the bike trail right next to the river had been washed out, and the river is a lot wider than it was. Although the town had done a great job of cleaning up the downed trees and debris left behind

from the flooding, there was still a fine dust or silt left behind from the runoff of the sandstone hills of the Badlands.

The Badlands of Alberta have more color than those of South Dakota, here they have a rich rust color from the shale, the white of the sandstone, black from the layers of coal and a mixture of other striking colors found here or there. On one side of the river is the town and on the other side are the badlands.

We rode as far south as we could go on the bike trails, without leaving town, then went back to the downtown area. Phil, John and I stopped in a café for coffee; Fran rode on to the store to pick up a few items. When she came back, we rode around for a little bit longer, and then headed back to the campground.

We had a wonderful day! It was very uplifting to see the downtown area of Drumheller full of shops and eateries, instead of closed up stores like we see in a lot of small towns.