Camping near Dinosaur Provincial Park

Near the end of the summer, we managed to fit in one more camping trip. This time we went somewhere new to us: Tillebrook Provincial Park near Brooks and Lake Newell. The campground was clean and easy to access but also less treed than we like.

There were some stocked ponds nearby that the boys visited to try and catch some fish but no luck (but a perfect opportunity for some gorgeous photos!)

The park is a close drive to Dinosaur Provincial Park so we spent some time exploring the hoodoos there. They are very protective of their fossils there so we didn't have the same freedom to explore that we are used to at Writing-on-Stone Provincial Park. But still interesting to explore and again, a perfect opportunity for some gorgeous photos!

We also had time to play at the beach at Lake Newell.

And our visit coincided with the solar eclipse. Being further south than Edmonton, we actually got to experience it at 80% rather than the 70% we would have had back home. We were too late to buy the special viewing glasses so Jess MacGyvered up some viewing tools for us.

The first one is a stick with a hole in it and some tin foil. You can see the shadow the eclipse is casting on the piece of paper on the ground.

The other was a pair of binoculars in some cardboard, with the eclipse shape shining on the black wetsuit draped on the picnic table. We noticed a strange dimness to the light at the height of the eclipse but it didn't go completely dark like it did further south.