The Midas Touch

I always anticipate the big Lafarge trip, and today was no different. tha duDe picked me up early and we drove to the hotel and scooped m⁴. We barely made it to the designated meeting point in time, but when we did, da f0ssZ was there to greet us. We signed in and walked back to tha duDe's ride to wait to go in. As we left our vehicles behind, many expectantly walked toward the new deposits. As we arrived on the new area, employees of the mine were there to greet us and send us back to the old piles. When I say old, I mean OLD. They were overgrown when I first started hunting this spot. Anyway, the officials at the mine have deemed the new deposits unsafe, so no one was allowed to hunt the hundreds of square yards of weathered spoil. Unwilling to waste the day hunting an awful spot, the four of us started the long walk back to the vehicles. Yet another mine that once allowed unfettered access to collectors has changed policy. Each of the last few times in, the collecting area has been reduced. What is the deal?? Oh, well, complaining doesn't help now and it didn't then, either, so we came up with an alternate plan. We drove out to the new oligocene spot for the duration of the day. The digging was righteous. I started digging an area tha duDe had already passed, and I struck gold. It was an angustidens that looked awesome until I saw its nasty tip ding, but it stoked my diggin' fires. Mere seconds later, I exposed the tip of another pretty big one. I was very careful removing it, and when I got it out, I encased it in a handful of dirt and put it in a bag. It was about time for lunch then, so we rolled to meet m⁴'s wife, then we hit where?? Taco Bell, of course! I tried a new combo, and I was pleased. Back to the pond, though, and it was business as usual. Dig, find a tooth, dig some more. For a little while, tha duDe and I were trading finds. His big finds came now, though. He was in a particularly productive area of Chandler Bridge, and he was pulling out tooth after tooth. The first was a nice 2 1/2 incher, followed by a sublime a1 that was a little bigger. I came across a few decent ones, but my best post-bell tooth was killer angel shark tooth that I found lying on the pond edge. The hunt was augmented by da f0ssZ's constant barrage of insults to our finds, but when we finally packed up at the end of the day, it was tha duDe who laughed last. I wasn't laughing, though, because I was frantically digging for "just one more". However, the fact that I am writing this proves that I did finally call it quits for the day. m⁴ is here for one more day, and we're planning to hunt again. I have no idea how I can top today, but I sure will try!