Aurora Fossil Festival

Aurora fossil festival 2006. It was great to see many friends again, and really nice to meet many new people as well. Among the fellow BRF members, I got to chat with blackwaterdiver and meet his ‘babe-age’, talk with M4, and got to hunt GMR and work with rivrdigr this weekend as well. Anyway, the festival went well and there were a bunch of volunteers. PCS was very good to us once again and allowed those that gave time to help with the festival access to hunt. With the rain that has come since the last hunt of the spring season, we eagerly anticipated the hunt. Then we got a pounding rain and high winds on Friday night, meaning I was having trouble wiping the grin off my face thinking about the bounty that awaited on Sunday. Then we found out it was a brand new area – OMG. The area was huge and no matter how many people were there, it was great! We headed out and decided to break off from the pack heading for Yorktown formations and the promise of big megs – many of whom were rewarded as it turns out. We instead tried to find some virgin Pungo and promise of the golden teeth. After coming up empty on the first couple of hills that looked very promising, I finally came upon a small root exposed. Either a large mako or a very small chub. It turned out to be the latter with minor tip damage. I then found its slightly larger sister a few minutes later. I found a few more, but each with more and more damage :( At least 50% of the teeth I found this weekend were broken, which seemed very unusual until I heard a bunch of others with the same comments on the bus. Paleoboy was getting a little upset cause he wasn’t scoring squat. Then his luck changed - a nearly complete squally. By far the best I have personally seen come out. He eventually found a decent chubby as well. When he found it, I was called over to see it and get a ground photo and on the way saw a treat – a nice patho dusky tooth. I like the patho’s, so that was a nice treat for me. Walking back to my pack from that beauty a complete cow shark was sitting in the open as well. Almost at the end of the day, I was walking a hill that had no prints on it but did not look too promising. I checked around a couple of plants on the way down the hill, wandered off to another hill and decided to go back and find paleoboy. On the way back I saw a partial reworked 3.25” lower meg laying on the ground in the open, clearly having been kicked up by someone coming down the hill. As I stared in disbelief, I quickly looked up the hill and saw a plant that looked familiar with footprints all around it. Then another plant also with prints around it. Then it dawned on me – *I* was the dope that kicked it up. Ooops – but at least I got to keep it for myself. Special thanks to Bill Heim for his best find – my wristwatch – which he returned in the parking lot; and a special congrats to Bonnie for her awesome patho meg (or in her words, ‘a broken one’) and to Lee for his stunning flawless 5.5” meg.