To boldly go where no man has gone lately…

Ok, our thinking was that if we can find piles of teeth where we had been looking, then we can most likely find piles of teeth other places, too. So we developed this grand scheme to search a stretch of the river by raft. I used GIS software to plot the length of the river we would search, and I concluded that it would take about 2 hours to float from spot a to spot b. Oh, how wrong I was. Try 4 hours. But this isn't a site about rafting, it’s a site about FOSSIL HUNTING! And that's what we did. The first spot we stopped at was kindof lousy. We searched it for about an hour and didn't really find anything good with the exception of a perfect double rooter squalodon tooth. The best one I ever found. When I found it, I about drowned because I was so excited. I got out of the water so I could put this treasure in the boat, lest anything happen to it. I carefully wrapped it in a bag, and then went back to my diving. We weren't really finding anything, so we decided to go somewhere else. As soon as my head broke the surface, I spied a bag floating down the river. I swam over to it and there was nothing in it. Whew, I thought! For a second I thought I lost it. I made my way to the boat, eager to see the tooth and show it to thA duDe. I looked around for it but couldn't find the bag. My heart sank. The bag had blown out of the boat, and the tooth had fallen out. This is the worst thing that has ever happen fossil wise to me! I stood up, screamed no, and ripped my shirt from my chest like they always do in the movies. Ok, maybe I didn't but it was a funny image that popped into my head just now! :-) Its my own twisted way of coping with loss. Anyway, we continued on down the river to the next spot. This one was actually worth stopping at. Rocks all over the bottom, and it’s a huge area. We knew we were gonna score. And we did. I found a SWEET angustidens, a nice isurus desori, and… get this, a skeleton of some creature. I think it’s a whale, but I'm not sure. I fanned around and there were ribs and vertebrae everywhere. Unfortunately, though, we ran out of time. I had a 5:30 deadline, and I thought we were an hour from the landing. WRONG. Bend after bend we hoped for the end, but it wasn't to be until 5:45. UGH! I hate being late when we have family plans. We never even stopped to take a breather before we loaded the gear into the truck and sped off into the sunset. Its time to take my medicine and face the imminent fosstility (fossil related hostility). I brought it on myself, though, so don't pity me. Learn from my mistakes. I have. Next time I'm late, I'd better have a better reason than "I'm an idiot and don't know how to estimate river passage chronology." FYI, that excuse doesn't work, even it is true. Next Saturday, no fossil hunting. Its my anniversary, and we'll be taking a trip to the state museum. FUN FUN FUN! I'll take some pictures of some of the nicer fossils they have there to share with you. Next Monday, though, da f0ssZ comes down and we hit the river again. Ttfn