Brooke’s little bike had a flat on the back tire, so Scott was teaching Brooke how to fix a flat after we finally remembered to pick another tube up from… where?  Yep!  Wal-Mart.

Check out Brooke’s gigantic smile.  Most of the time she runs from the camera.  This smile is because she finally was able to try out her bike after begging for more than 48 hours.  

Yes!!! We finally had a perfect family bike ride.  I’m not sure about mileage, according to Scott’s GPS it was about 11 miles.  It was a mostly flat trail through the historic areas outside of Drumheller and back into downtown Drumheller.  The town’s claim to fame is the world’s largest dinosaur and there are little dinosaurs scattered throughout the town.  While I type Scott and Brooke are trying to fish off of a bridge across the street from an abandoned town named Dorothy. Cody is taking a late afternoon siesta.

The picture on the right is of three dinosaurs and Brooke on a bike ride.  Opps! That’s Scott with two dinosaurs behind him.

Someone didn’t enjoy the bike ride very much

His last official nap was early this morning.  He tried to sleep during the bike ride, but he couldn’t find a comfy position, and every time he did manage to sleep I would hit a bump.  He moaned through most of the ride, poor guy.  I wonder if they make an easy chair version of the bike seat.

A gopher popping up

Of course we only have a backside view, but there are these adorable creatures everywhere.  I kept calling them prairie dogs, but a woman I met today at our “watering hole” and bike trailhead said they are gophers.  New question: What is the difference between a gopher and a prairie dog?  The lady said prairie dogs are much larger.  We haven’t had long Wifi access here, so I need to look that up if and when I get a chance.

Scott and Brooke just returned from fishing.  Speaking of looking things up, what kind of lure(s) would one use to catch anything that swims in a river when fishing with a rod and reel?

Scott wants to stay at an abandoned church tonight. He learned about it from 3 women bike-packers from from Seattle who stayed there a few nights back. Yes, it does sound intriguing, but this is me.  I tend to stick with known and safe, whereas Scott prefers taking the unbeaten path.   I would like to go back to the campground we were at yesterday and chat with Sharon and Albert again. Besides being wonderful people, they made us feel like we were at home.  We enjoy meeting new people, but there is definitely a comforting feeling to being with people you know and can chat with about almost anything.

This is the “ghost” town of Dorothy.  We stayed at the white church in the upper left hand corner of the picture. 

No one slept very well.  We had to open some windows because it was very hot and stuffy in there.  We left one window open when Scott went to sleep.  I said I would close it when the sun finally went down, which was 11:30.  I couldn’t close the window so I woke up Scott, so it wouldn’t get too cold.  After I woke up Scott he couldn’t get back to sleep.  I always have trouble sleeping when we camp someplace we  are not supposed to be, and Brooke originally intrigued by the idea wanted her tent back ten minutes into the adventure.

watching part of Back to the Future in an abandoned church

  Brooke made a list of all the things they need to do to fix up the church: the windows, the door, the electricity, the seats, and the altar.  When Brooke decided she was done with sleeping in the church she got really mad and threatened, “I’m going to tell Meme and Alex that you made me sleep in a church!”  Sometimes it’s really hard not to giggle when she yells.  Meme, Scott’s mom, is at church all weekend every weekend and Alex, her cousin, has his own preaching robes because he loves to play church and cries if someone mentions church and he can’t go.  It was very surreal watching part of Back to the Future in an abandoned church while we tried to settle in for the night.

Okay, Scott wants me to put in a plug here.  He said that he doesn’t like how it sounds like he is “torturing” me to do things I don’t want to do.  I have already admitted and will always be the first to admit that I’m not the adventurous one.  Most of the time I do enjoy the crazy adventures he takes me on.  He is the one who encouraged me to learn to scuba dive, which I absolutely love, he is the one who, with the help of my dad, bought me a sky diving birthday present when I was twenty, and he is the one who convinced me to take a break from college to travel the country, which I consider one of the greatest experiences of my life.  So yes, there are many times that I begrudgingly go on adventures that I am afraid to venture into, and then I wind up loving them.  It is just harder to just blindly jump into the wildness when there are two cuties to consider.

A picture from the back window of the abandon church