First trip into lee creek

years ago I saw fossils being brought out of a mine located in north Carolina, big legs and rare teeth were just a few things that drew my attention to the place that many call lee creek. There was one little problem, I had to be 18 to get in. So I waited and let the years pass watching meg after meg pulled out of the fossil rich dirt that is in the mine. Well on April 18, 2009 I turned 18 years of age and I would have the chance to hunt the mine.

I began to count down the days and watch as week after week the trips become cancelled so it was only a matter of time before I would know if I would make it in or not. It began to look good re week leading up so my father and I packed up my car and headed for the great state of North Carolina.

So where was I, oh yes, so we made it to NC, arrived there around 11pm we stayed at the Days Inn which was nice and let me tell all you single guys out there the women are very nice!!!! So we got our sleep knowing that we would have a big day when we woke up.

So we drive down the road a little and find the parking lot! I thought it would be a pain in the but to find but actually it was really easy. We found where everyone was filled out or life wavier forum, put on our hardhats and got on the bus. So here I am basicly jumping up and down on the ride into the mine, I was like a dog going on vacation with his head stuck out the window and tounge flapping in the wind. I was so happy. When we finally made it to the ramp I looked out onto the most beautiful mine I have ever seen, the one I have been dreaming of for the last 5 years and before you knew it we were off walking fast down the hill watching our footing making sure we didnt slip and slide in the mud. It took me a little while to find anything of size, at first it was all fish material. Puffer jaws, verts, some small shark teeth but nothing that I could call a meg. Then I ran into two guys who had already found some teeth, the one found a 2 3/4" meg with a bit of damage to the root and tip but hey it was a meg! Then he showed me a side off a 4" meg he had found a few feet in front of me. What comes next I could never expect, he tells me "good luck" and i turn around and find an actual tooth! A awesome chub, really shiny black but it is missing some of the rooth and cusp but it was my first nice sized tooth! It took a long long time for my dad to find anything, here i am finding tooth after tooth, I guess that chub was good luck and my father is over there stacking verts..... but he did have some luck he found a reworked meg that measures almost 3.5" and a gw missing the root. I had some gw luck of my own I found half of one sticking out of the ground it looked whole but i was happy with the sliver that i found. Right after the gw I picked up this little shell looking thing and told my dad I was going to put it back down but then I stopped and asked him if he could hold on to it for me ( I AM GLAD I DID!!!! ) you will find out later. Then on the side of a hill i spotted about an inch of a really nice lower meg sticking out and once again it was broken, I think ill repair this one it looks easy enough. We were finding the normal stuff so i decided to head the other way since it seemed like no one was over there, well I found out why! there were no teeth!!! I looked under a bush and found a broken beni. looked around for another 10min and could not find the rest but at least I have a partial, now here is the sad part, if I didnt stay there for that extra 10min i would have scored a nice 3.5" reworked meg that was resting on top of the ground over the next hill. I say the lady walking away so I stood there for a few minutes and looked down to find a dolphin skull. It was an awesome find, it threw me off balance when i spotted so i slid down the hill on my butt. I walked over to see the meg that the lady had found and i would have been very happy with it but i was glad she had found it because at the end of the day it seemed that it was her only major find. My dad came over and we started finding more and more but as many of you know, you can not stay there all day so we left and got back on the bus and headed on home. It was really hard to leave the place, everyone was so nice down there that I felt at home. It may have been the first time that they have seen me but it was not the last!!!! I would like to thank everyone at PCS, everyone who allows us hunters to enter the mine and find these great fossils, everyone who helps with the organization, the guides who proved to be very helpful to my father and even the collectors who all seemed like great people and i enjoyed my time down there in the mine with them. Now after my trip BJ told me about what the shell looking thing was, its not a shell at all, its a shark gland, preorbital process, from what i heard they are rare. My cameras are not here right now so when I get them back ill be sure to take better pictures!!!