"I can't believe I'm doing this."

My husband is grimacing as he tries to empty the sewage, known in RV terminology as "black water," into a dumping station at an Alberta RV camp. I'm marveling at the fact he's hardly complained, even after driving our rented RV for hours along Alberta's highways, a process he likens to pushing a bathtub uphill.

The RV is our proposed solution to the economic recession: a relatively cheap way to take a family of six out west to experience the Canadian Badlands, home to the greatest number of dinosaur fossils on earth.

Our goal is to encourage the kids' interest in dinosaurs with an educational vacation, and on an economic level, to try a more luxurious version of camping without breaking the budget.

But try squeezing six people into a space not much larger than an average bathroom and you're bound to feel a little claustrophobic. Now add bad directions that accumulate unwanted hours on a long journey and a torrential downpour once you reach your destination, and what you get easily approaches the definition of a vacation gone wrong.

But it's how you look at the situation that defines your interpretation, and early evening in the Dinosaur Provincial Park in eastern Alberta, this is what I was mulling over.

Still, we were in a pretty unique spot, camping in a park that protects the remains of 75-million-year-old dinosaur bones, and boasts 38 different dinosaur species, making it one of the largest collections of fossilized dinosaur remains in the world.

Out on tour with park rangers, it was clear that with every step we were treading on history, an ancient world carved into the majestic Badlands.

Etched with the colours of time, these stratified mountains descend to the ground with cracked, dry thighs, embracing each other like a community of tightly knit giants.

Today the land is a semi-arid desert, but back in the dinosaur heyday it was a beach on the cusp of the Bearpaw Sea, a lush landscape that was a clear favourite among Hadrosaurids, or duck-billed dinosaurs, whose fossils are now found here in abundance.

"This one was the size of our bus," our guide says as she points to the virtually intact fossil of one. Excavated in the late 1960s, this Hadrosaurid is curled up in an embryonic pose, leading scientists to hypothesize that it drowned by falling in a river, its remains quickly protected by the layers of sandstone and mudstone that accumulated on top of it.

Dinosaur Provincial Park is a veritable bone-bed, an 80-square-kilometre stretch of remote Albertan soil that's richer in dino bone than anywhere else in the world.

To truly understand its significance we drive 90 minutes northwest to Drumheller, home to the Royal Tyrrell Museum. The crown jewel of this town of 10,000, the Royal Tyrrell is the only Canadian museum devoted exclusively to paleontology and its exhibits are riveting.

There are the recreated figures of the dinosaurs that testify to their immensity, and the opportunity to peek into the laboratories of technicians who are patiently chipping away at rock surrounding newly found fossils. Hands-on displays help kids understand concepts like continental drift and how fossils form.

Tucked away in an RV park a few minutes from the town of Drumheller, we sit around a campfire roasting marshmallows while the kids find instant playmates in the community of RVers around us.

Yes, this is a far cry from a luxury cruise. But sometimes the road less traveled yields unexpected adventure.

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