leaving my old life behind... again!

i guess it had to happen sooner or later, people of the innerweb. my vacation back to my former "home" has come to an end...

like so many things in my life, it seemed to last so long, but yet end so fast...

it's probably just because so much happened while i was here. i found out how my egg was found, made a huge palaeontologic discovery, was attacked by raptors, uncovered a fossil poaching scheme in the area, and finally was dinonapped! no wonder this vacation felt sooo long...

with its conclusion though comes some great sadness. sure i won't miss all the crazy stuff that happened towards the end of the trip, but i will miss my childhood home. the royal tyrrell museum...


i decided to use my last afternoon in drumheller to take a final wander of the museum's galleries where i used to live.

it was a bitter/sweet use of my day i'll tell you. a whole flood of memories (good and bad) from that long gone era of my life streamed through my tiny head.

despite all the amazing things that had happened to me since i'd left the musum (pretty much everything on this blog, for my new readers), part of me yearned for these long gone days to come back. it was silly i know, especially given how unhappy i was back then, but part of me really did miss it all.

granted enough had changed around the museum itself since i left, that my yearning for old times was now more of nostalgia then me wanting to actually stay here now. my museum was gone, and it wasn't coming back...

as if i needed a reminder, the museum's new resident albertosaurus wandered the halls interacting with the guests. a sharp reminder of how the tyrrell had become the domain of larry my JERK! of a cousin and his gang of bullies the pack of the primordial feather.

it wasn't like this at all when i lived here. back in those days all sorts of vivus-dinosaurs (vivus is the fancy scientific name for living dinosaurs) lived and worked here. including one that made looking out into the dinosaur hall a visual treat. that was the incredibly hot and beautiful lillian (man i missed her not being here the most this WHOLE trip!... at least i know roughly where she is these days! i should as i sent her ;P)...

thinking of all those dinosaurs of times past, i couldn't help think of another big change for the worse in town since i left...

that of course being drumheller overrun with tons of unemployed and jobless vivus-dinosaurs!

it had been bad when i lived here, but nothing compared to how many wander the streets now! the pack taking over the tyrrell meant that nearly all the local vivus-dinos ended up as vagrants. the recent drop in tourism lately has just made things worse for dinosaur employment. if tourists aren't willing to pay to see them, the locals sure aren't going to pay them to stand around town!

so i'm glad i'm not situated here anymore for that reason...


as i wandered down the halls of the museum, i couldn't help but feel very odd. despite being a place that used to be so familiar, and still was in a sense, i felt very much like an alien intruding in a place i didn't belong.

the museum was like a ghost town. all the landmarks and places were the same, but yet the people who i associated with them were no where to be seen... most of my friends and former coworkers (human and dinosaur) had moved on from this place...

the giant of the triassic display was a most sobering reminder of this fact. the museum had finally put dr. betsy nicholls' magnificent shonisaurus sikanniensis on display, but sadly as a memorial to her passing away. fortunately all my other former coworkers and colleagues hadn't died, but simply moved on with their lives and gone elsewhere... yet in same ways it felt like they were gone for good.

`

those that were still there were a painful reminder of yet more that i'd lost. the most significant of which was my mother. who like always, stood silently and motionless dominating the dinosaur hall.

i still yearn for the days before i'd figured out what death was... when my tiny brain was pure and innocent. i'd always just assumed mom was very shy and lazy, and was otherwise okay. as she was just standing there, and would listen to my ever word (never once interrupting me)...

i wonder what would have happened had she not died out 65 million years, and i'd hatched back then like i was supposed to? would my life have turned out better?

snapping me out of my feeling sorry for myself and missing the old days, i suddenly was hit by a wave of dizziness... oh man not more magic!!!

okay so the magic thing is my own fault. had i not doused myself in pure maori magic it wouldn't be an issue. however by doing so i'd turned myself into a living magic detector. anything remotely mystical (and real!) turns on when i'm around it... including vivus-dinsaurs.

`

i'd learned we dinosaurs in the modern world, owed our being here to magic! the mysterious eggs that palaeontologists had been finding the past few years from which we were hatching had been doing so due to some sort of magic protecting us for millions of years...

`

another dinosaur only phenomenon turned out to be caused by magic. vivus-dinosaurs, myself included, will swear to being able to hear the voices from fossil skeletons long extinct. not that they are ghosts or conversational, mind you, but the fossils seem to have an echoed imprint of its owners last thoughts. meaning we living dinosaurs can communicate with a brief snap shot of our ancestors, not that we can get anything out of them beyond what was going through their heads in the last few minutes of their life.

`

which brings us to my mom. my whole childhood i'd trying to talk to her echo, but sadly missing her skull her echoes were only ever vague emotions. no words. which is why this last trip (possibly due to my now being a magic battery) i was surprised when she suddenly spoke to me for the first time!

`

suddenly here today she did it again!

"my dear sweet little traumador," my mother's echo addressed me. then like before she warned. "be on your guard my little, danger soon shall stalk you..."

i won't lie, having my heard my mother's voice for only the third time ever, this was all i thought of the rest of my time in the museum.

`

i guess that's not such a bad thing. i didn't want to conclude my homecoming with sad memories. it had been a good trip, and it had great to see all the old places and people (who were still here) that once were my life.

`

as i made my way out of the museum and towards the bus that would take me out of drumheller, i couldn 't stop fixating on my mothers dire warning...

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what did she know that i didn't? how could she have known 65 million years ago something that was going to happen now? should i pay it any attention to this warning?

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thankfully as the bus lurched to a start, i looked out the window, and all my worries and sadness were gone. the sun was setting on drumheller.

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a fitting end to my return visit. i said goodbye... out loud, causing many of the other passengers to look at me a little funny... oops!

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it was at this moment i had a breaking thought! ever since i'd been laid off by the tyrrell, i'd desperately clung to it as part of who i was. everything i had done since, i had compared to this old life...

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yet it was over, and had been a long time. it wasn't until right now, looking at the sunsetting on town that i realized that fact. it was not the town or museum i'd grown up in. like me they'd both changed too. it was time i let go of the past, and try to create a future for myself!

`

i was finally filled with happiness today, as this trip home went from a pleasant trip down memory lane, to a full on life altering experience. as i drove out of drumheller, i realized in many ways this would be the last time i would ever leave my former home...

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leaving it, mind you, in the sense of viewing it of where i should be. somehow i suspect, people of the web wide world, this is not the last time i'll be to drumheller though...

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Next: cowtown!