A Day Back in NJ

Two weekends ago we had planned a trip up to NJ for a short weekend so that my wife could walk in the Susan G. Koman cancer walk in NY City. We were to drive up Friday night and back to NC on Sunday after the walk, visiting family in between. Our plans changed however when my wife’s Uncle passed away on Wednesday, and we had to drive up on Thursday instead. With no one to watch Nolan and Juli on Friday, I needed to find something to keep us occupied while my wife attended the afternoon services and I figured fossiling was as good an activity as any. I knew Nolan wouldn’t last long at any one spot, so I figured we could make two stops, one at Ramanessin and one at Big Brook. I brought along a screen and a couple of spaghetti strainers (my screen was too large for Big Brook) and borrowed a shovel from my in-laws. We arrived at Ramanessin and headed to one of my old reliable spots. The recent rains had obviously mixed things up as there were a couple of partial teeth lying out on top the gravel. We started hunting and it wasn’t long before a couple of decent smaller goblin anteriors found their way into the screen. My son kept himself entertained by throwing half a brick into the water, then having me retrieve it. It became a little monotonous having to constantly retrieve it, but the area definitely had some potential so whatever kept him happy was OK with me. Juli and I were picking out (and throwing back) quite a few partial teeth, but not many whole ones and it wasn’t before long before Nolan realized it was much more fun throwing the brick where it would splash me - I could definitely tolerate being a little more wet than usual as long as it kept him happy. We picked up a nice orange colored Archeolamna tooth which made the 45 minutes certainly worthwhile but I should have figured that the brick throwing 4 year old wouldn’t have his finer motor skills under complete control. Two bruises later and it was time for the brick to find a new home downstream which Nolan was not in full agreement with. Juli and I, being satisfied with what we had found, decided it was time to move on. We arrived at Big Brook where we decided to head downstream to where there used to be a footbridge over the water. This had been my first time back to Big Brook in about three years and somewhere during that time the bridge must have been washed away making the stream access a little more difficult. We managed our way down to the water, but Nolan was more interested in walking up on the path. Juli and I managed about 10 spaghetti strainers full of gravel in between walking with Nolan on the path, but his mood was declining quickly and we decided to call it a day after 30 minutes. On the way out we noticed a boogie board caught up in a dead fall. I snapped a picture and made my way over to it to see that it was a very nice board, in almost perfect shape. Not having much room in the car we decided to leave it in the parking lot for someone else to claim. While it wasn’t the happiest day of fossiling, it was nice to be back, even for just a brief visit with the streams of NJ.