A Trip To The Aurora Fossil Museum

I headed down to North Carolina on Thursday night, family in tow, to meet with our builder on Friday and Saturday. We finished early on Saturday and my wife was going to spend the remainder of the day showing the area to my sister-in-law while I entertained my kids in the hotel room. Seeing that the three of us couped up in a hotel room all day might not be the most bond developing experience, we decided to rent a car and take a day trip. Lets see, NC, day trip, kids, - The Aurora Fossil Museum! OK, it may not have been the kid’s first choice, but my vote counts as three. My 7 year old daughter was actually looking forward to it, knowing she could pick some fossils out of the spoils across the street, but my 3 year son was in a mood. After the long ride from Raleigh, we arrived at the museum, first spending about 20 minutes picking at the spoil pile. We then headed into the museum but my son was not as happy as the rest of us to be there. We made our way through the rooms but the more my jaw dropped from each new display that came into view, the more my son seemed to develop a strong allergic reaction to shark teeth. We headed back to the lobby, signed the guest book, bought some T-shirts and went back across the street to pick up a few more teeth and shells. (A return visit is still high on my to-do list) As the time approached 3:00 we drove out to the staging area/parking lot for the mine to buy some Riker mounts and maybe see some big teeth found during the day. Tooth Monkey had been in the mine with the NJ Paleontological Society (a very worthwhile organization to which I am a member) and while he hadn’t found anything earthshattering, he did indicate that there was a new pile of spoil material near Chocowinity. We stopped at the piles on the way back but my son was exhausted and ready for an extended car nap. My daughter and I searched for about 10 minutes: she found a nice sized, mostly complete Hemi and I came up with a really nice anterior mako - both our days were made. Being that my son wouldn’t even let me put him down at this point, we cleaned up and headed back to the hotel.