A Day In The Trenches at Aurora

A rare alignment of the planets has brough forth a heretofore unheard of event - the combination of the birthday fossil hunt with the spring visit to Lee Creek. The birthday fossil hunt brings with it special privileges from my extremely generous and understanding wife. I was going on a two day fossil bonanza with my long time fossil hunting pal da f0ssZ. We arrived at the hotel at 10:30 Friday night, and within 5 minutes of checking into our room, we saw two mega roaches. da f0ssZ summarily disposed of them with his ninja-like reflexes so we could sleep without pest interuption. (Hotel! I hereby dub thee roach²!) The next day we met up with fellow Black River Fossilers G-Man, M4, and Xiphodan, and old friends Roy and Rob from Times Scientific. As always, I was excited beyond my abilities to contain said excitement, so when we finally got into the pit I was beyond ready to hunt. I had heard that the collecting area was covered with James City, so I had my trusty shovel in hand to dig any Yorktown I encountered along the way. I was determined to find a megalodon tooth, but being a realist I decided to pay attention to all the Pungo I came across in my search for diggable Yorktown. Well, it just so happened that there were two big hills of Pungo just to the right of the slope where the group entered the pit. I have always heard that great teeth are always found close to the front of the collecting area, so I hit the hills hard. I paid close attention in hopes of finding a Cow shark tooth. I found a busted one, then another. Not to mention the hoardes of tigers, hemipristi, carcharinids, etc. About an hour and a half into the hunt, I came across my best tooth of the day, a 2 inch flawless killer of a mako shark tooth. I took a photo, showed a nearby fellow collector, and moved on. I kept finding areas of Pungo, but no Yorktown. So, I just hunted where I was rather than chase something that might not even be in the collecting area. I'm so glad, because by 1 pm, I had found zero hills of Yorktown, and five hills of Pungo. I was at the top of the last one and I really felt the impact of the wind, which was gusting over 30 miles per hour. It picked up all the dust from the dry pit and blasted us all. I spent minutes hiding my face in my jacket from the sand. At one point, the wind blew so hard that it sent one woman's hard hat into no man's land beyond the sacred border stakes. I looked across the pit, and there was so much sand in the air that I could barely see the far side of the pit. I hid behind the top of the Pungo hill to eat an apple and wait out the dust storm. I put my bag down and picked up every tooth shielded from the wind. When the wind died down, I was finished with my apple, so I went to pick up my pack and move on to another place to look. To my surprise, there was my second killer mako tooth of the day. I checked in my pocket to make sure I still had my first mako tooth. This tooth was out in the open just like the first, and it seemed rather unlikely that it would have lasted that long without being found by someone else. Even more amazing was that I didn't see it before I carelessly threw my pack on top of it. Glad I wasn't sporting a sledge hammer! I picked up that tooth and headed towards the bus. My eyes had taken a beating from the dust storm and I couldn't take any more. I had to leave the pit prematurely at 2 instead of 3. I saw Pat so I went and showed her my stuff before getting on the bus, and while doing so, dropped my biggest hemipristis of the day. I picked it up and then unknowingly dropped it again. I'm sure someone has found it by now. It was a big, black killer. You couldn't miss it against the road material. Anyway, that's what I get for not making sure it went into my pockets when I put it away. After the pit, we were off to Taco Bell and then the spoil piles with G-Man where we hunted more fossils while we discussed 80's heavy metal, entropy, and Ren and Stimpy. Later that night when da f0ssZ and I got back to the Roach², I sorted out all my goods and realized that I had racked and exceeded my every expectation for the day, even though I didn't find a single item on my mental list of fossils I wanted to find during my visit. Fossil hunting is just fun like that. I found it hard to sleep looking forward to the second leg of our journey - my first trip to Greensmill Run.