odd

Today we went to Drumheller. It’s an odd place, but not odd in a bad way. I really liked it. I didn’t really understand what it was like until I saw it; the whole town is in a big valley, along with a few other little towns. Drumheller is home to the world’s largest T-Rex and Alberta’s largest (24-hour) IGA. They have an odd fascination with dinosaurs, which does make sense because of the fossils discovered in their area. The reason it’s odd is because they have statues of dinosaurs all over the place. And murals. And, of course, the Royal Tyrell Museum. We didn’t go there, but we did see the hoodoos. Hoodoos are odd rock formations that are wide on top and thin out near the bottom. They sort of look like mushrooms. They're very cool, and they're all over the place if you take a walk through the badlands. Well, you can't really walk through the badlands, you really have to hike. And jump, and slide if necessary. It's very odd terrain; soft, loose soil, shale, grey clay-like rock, loose grey clay-like rock, hoodoos, endless hills of layered rock, brush full of cacti and prickly plants, interspersed in an odd, seemingly random array of colours and shapes and vegetation. Jonathan, Reneyah and I hiked over the terrain for an hour and a half with a single goal; to get to the odd, 30-foot statue of Jesus on top of one of the hills. I mean, how random is that? Badlands, badlands, badlands, Jesus, badlands. Even more odd is that no one really knows how it got there. It’s at least 30 feet tall, if not 40 feet. It was made with some kind of wire mesh and plaster; someone had to lug all of those supplies up and over the terrain to get it all there and build it in the blistering sun and powerful wind. It can get pretty windy up there.
We also ate at an odd restaurant, where the lady serving us was upset with us for not having bills smaller than a twenty. I mean, she was pretty ticked. We apologized and she told us "Sorry's not good enough!" Maybe she was having a bad day.
Rhonda gave us a tour of the Canadian Badlands Passion Play site; she and Jeremy have worked there the past two summers. It’s quite the site; it’s set in a natural amphitheatre and designed to look like Isreal. It seats three thousand and has a cast of two hundred. I’m hoping to go see it in July; it seems like it would be a great show. I’d have to say that was the least odd part of Drumheller that we saw today.
But you know, I really liked it. It felt real, a little rough around the edges, and oddly endearing. Maybe that means I’m a little odd myself.
I’ve recently bought the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series and am enjoying it immensely. It’s hilarious. If you appreciate wacky humour, you would enjoy it too. In fact, you should go buy it right now. Why are you still sitting there? Go!