I just figured out how to get the pictures out of my new camera, so I can finally show you the pictures from my latest trip to Alberta. Can you imagine having something this beautiful to look at every day? I had planned to take more pictures of this amazing place, but there was a storm the last night I was there and the light was too flat to get good pictures. I guess I'll just have to go back again.

One of the things we did was go to the Royal Tyrell Museum in Drumheller, where there is an amazing collection of dinosaur bones and fossils. I've been to museums that had a dinosaur and fossil room, but never one that was all relics like these.

(For those who are interested, I'm the short relic on the left; my friend Mary Jane, who lets me come play at her house in Alberta, is on the right). This place even has a dinosaur named for it - Albertosaurus. That's the one racing to get out of the picture in the background.

I can't imagine how people ever looked at this place and thought "This looks like home." I guess the availability of water had something to do with it, but it's still a formidable place. And I can't imagine people living through a Canadian winter in a soddy, much less deciding to stay and do it again another year. I can't imagine living in a place where you can't even see your nearest neighbors in the days before electricity or telephone. I can't imagine having to make everything by hand - socks, soap, bread, butter - and having to have enough food in the cellar to last until spring. I love the idea of doing all those things, so long as I can run to the store and buy it when I get tired of making it myself.

But here I've been home a week and the temperature has been over 100 every day, and I'm sure most Albertans think I'm nuts to live in a place like this. They don't care if it's 50 degrees outside on a summer evening; they just pull up closer to the fire pit and go on with their picnic. I guess it's what lets them live through winter. Meanwhile I'm trying to stay indoors through the heat of the day and only venture out early in the morning and in the evening. Good weather for knitting small projects and making quilt blocks.