Bonedigger, bonedigger...

Here are some better shots of "the bone", taken by classmate Leslie Karpiak. I plan to get back in the swing of real posts shortly, but for now I'll do a photo post.

Dino Camp

As I begin to write this I realize I've never really talked about how I got myself into this Master's program in the first place. So at some point in the not-too-distant-future I'll need to do that.

Last week, beginning on July 6th and ending on July 11th, I took a class entitled "Dinosaur Paleontology of the Hell Creek Formation", here in Montana. Here is my log of what happened on this trip (some events are sure to be glossed over in the name of expediency, humility, self-esteem, and/or good taste, not necessarily in that order.)

On Monday morning we met outside one of the residence halls, where there were many people. I'd met 11 other classmates of mine for this trip the night before, so I was a little taken aback by the 30 or so people waiting for a van. Turns out the department failed to close the registrations for this class, so they got twice as many students as they normally have: OOPSIE!

We all loaded our gear into a pickup and Frankie's (more about Frankie Jackson later) Jackson's (paleontology professor) camper, and clambered into vans for the ride to Glendive. Remember, Montana is a large state; 4th largest in land area, if my sources are correct. So traveling ⅗ of the distance across the state actually means something from a time standpoint. It means you're going to travel about six or seven hours is what it means.

By the time we rolled into Glendive, we knew each others' life stories, we'd swapped photos, a new administration had taken office…a long time had passed. It was time to stop at Albertson's a supermarket chain out here. Thirty people ran through that place, scouring it for trail mix, beer, snacks, wine, beer, teriyaki wings, and more beer. Turns out a six pack of Fat Tire didn't take me far into the week, and it was Thursday before we re-provisioned. Given what I knew about archaeologists, I expected a beer run every day. I guess paleontologists and geologists are more refined…

From there it was a short drive to Makoshika State Park, where we were greeted by precipitous dropoffs on both sides of the road, and road beds that are impassable in rain because of their mineral composition which turns to a soupy mud, known affectionately as "gumbo". I tried to think how to take some of this clay soil home, so I could demonstrate: the closest I can come is Bentonite. If anyone knows a good source for this, please send it my way.

That night after dinner we introduced ourselves to the group--by Friday I knew most of the names--and how we got there. Then we had a couple of mini-lectures by Frankie and Jim Schmitt, the geologist of the teaching pair, on tephonomy and why it is important to know how a fossil ends up where it is. Think CSI: Cretaceous.

On Tuesday I awoke early to try to get some pictures of the area at sunrise. The sun goes down late and comes up early in these parts, so 5:30 didn't get me up in time for the sunrise, but I did get some pictures of the local flora.

After breakfast we went to the A-Frame at the top of the hill, which overlooks a canyon carved by numerous extinct streams carving into the soil. There we had the first lecture of the week, by Jim. He gave us the background of the geologic deposits visible in the canyon, as well as the time frame we were looking at. In a nutshell, the Hell Creek formation lies just below the layer of coal ("Z coal") that marks the boundary between the Cretaceous and Tertiary (the K/T boundary), which happens to be the time period where dinosaurs are thought to have gone extinct. The lecture was very interesting, and the setting was spectacular, but we all wanted to get out in the field.



After lunch, we did just that: half the group went with Jim, to check out sandstone deposits from a geologic standpoint while the other half, including me, went down the Cap Rock Trail, and then off the trail, down past the K/T boundary, to the bottom of a canyon where we all could have died easily if we'd fallen into mud caves, the walls gave way, it started raining, or someone up above us kicked some rocks loose. It was exhilarating.

The trip down was marked by few finds: a marine mollusk, some leaf imprints in ancient marine mudstone, and a crocodile tooth. Pretty cool, but I was shut out and not feeling to good about it. Then some guys up on a rise at the foot of a cliff said they'd found some bone. On my way up to see what they'd found, I looked down and saw something that looked suspiciously like the vertebrae on the skeleton model at my massage therapist's office. I called Frankie over, and she confirmed my find.
Then I looked about five feet to the right and saw the unmistakable curve of a tooth. At that point, I'm certain a profanity escaped my lips, which started with "Holy". Frankie said it was a shed tooth from some sort of theropod. Had it been a full tooth with the root attached, it would have been much longer, and it would be associated with a skull. But apparently, like most animals, theropods shed teeth and re-grew them throughout their lives. This tooth had serrated edges on it, which probably won't show up in the photos. I logged the information, including the GPS coordinates, of this find, collected the specimens, and we began the long hike out of the canyon.

Tuesday night was another lecture, and Wednesday morning the two groups swapped activities. In the afternoon we hiked out to a spot on the access road where there were abundant fossils of marine plants present. This was fine, but most of us wanted to go look for more bones.

On Thursday we had lecture once more, and then in the afternoon we hiked into another trail where the K/T boundary was very apparent. There, Jim debunked the popular Discovery Channel explanation of the dinosaur extinction, and left us with the impression that we really don't know why there was a mass die-off at the K/T boundary. In a nutshell, the index fossils of dinosaurs disappear three meters below the appearance of the iridium layers that many use to explain the mass extinction event at the K/T boundary.

That night most of us were treated to a performance of "Two Gentlemen of Verona", presented by Montana State University's Shakespeare in the Parks troupe. The performance was pretty good, but I was distracted by the scenery at the park's amphitheater. Some of the younger, more adventurous guys ventured into the canyon by the A-Frame and found a few more fossils. My wife and family are probably glad I chose to watch theater.

On Friday we loaded into our vans and headed to the dump. Well, first we visited the Makoshika State Park visitors center to check out the exhibits (really well done!) and to buy schwag. I did my part for the Montanan economy.

The dump: this is where the excitement happened. The City of Glendive has bought a large tract of land so they can expand the landfill at some future time when everyone has given up on Las Vegas and decides to go there instead. Out in the canyons behind the tire dump is where we were set free to employ our skills. For a good while, I saw nothing where it should have been, but I was excited because I found a cool ironstone concretion that I could keep!

After about an hour of looking around, I came across Joel, my classmate who had an eye for fossils. On our initial venture, he found a leaf impression and the crocodile tooth, and I think another bone. This time when I saw him he was uncovering a wide, thin bone that looked like a scapula. I offered to help him clean it out, and as I was doing that, I looked about four feet off to the right, where I saw a pinkish-looking piece of stone peeking out from beneath a sage. The piece I saw was about three inches tall and two inches across, rounded, with a darker, rougher center and a smoother, lighter edge. The same profanity escaped my lips as when I saw the tooth, and all of a sudden I was digging it out.

Before long, the piece was larger than one of my fists, and it showed no signs of being done. We called for Jim to see if it was anything important, though we knew the answer before we asked.

The rule was that we should only take bones that were diagnostic (either being complete, or being in a place or situation that would give evidence to how it got there).

When Jim showed up, he thought it looked like a vertebra with the processes broken off. I thought it looked like one of the ends of a long bone.


Long story short, the group became more excited as time wore on, and we realized there was quite a bit of bone there. About three inches from the big piece we unearthed, there was a jagged end that was obviously broken off, with dark, crystalline stone inside. There were numerous bone fragments scattered underneath where it broke off, and we kept looking for more bone. We weren't disappointed, as up from the break and to the left was the associated broken end. We kept digging, and unearthed what ended up as a 4-5 foot long bone with two complete ends. It was definitely diagnostic, but we didn't have the time or ability to extract it, and if we tried to carry it out it would be destroyed by the journey. The heartbreaking decision was made that we would have to re-bury it, and keep the coordinates for someone else to come dig it out.

I was on a high from having found it, but hugely disappointed that someone else would return to finish the job. That disappointment didn't last long however, once we returned to camp and talked to Frankie. First of all, from the pictures we showed her, she thought it was the tibia of a theropod (could very well have been a T Rex). Better yet, she told me it is likely a local teacher in Glendive who is a graduate of the MSSE program will take his classes out there to unearth the bone and go through the process of removal. Nothing could have raised my spirits any higher than that: any time kids can learn from what I've begun, I am happy.

We did an inquiry activity that night, and then the mood was festive due to it being the last night of Dino Camp, and the beer stop right after the Glendive Dump. There were five of us who were finished with their MSSE program at the completion of that activity, so we were very happy.

Later that night, we watched the moon come up from the deck where we'd had our first lectures. There were a few people left on the deck when I excused myself and headed back down the hill to bed. The next morning we packed up and were on the road by 8:30 and were back in Bozeman by 3:30.

I hope this post has done justice to the great experience of Dino Camp. I couldn't recommend it more highly.

Westward, Ho!

The last week’s been kind of surreal. I think the van lag has set in, and my mind hasn’t caught up.

If you’ve been keeping up with Life’s Lessons over the past week, then you’re likely aware of the goings-on, but I’ll give my own synopsis here.

On Monday (wow, it was still June then!) it rained. And it kept raining. And we kind of knew Weather Lad’s last baseball game wasn’t going to be played, but we stuck around anyway, in hopes that he’d be able to get one final game in. At 3 pm we received the call that Aubuchon Field was unplayable, and the game would be postponed. Bummed out by that, we put a move on and decided to blow town a day earlier than we’d expected.

It was in my plans to cross into New York by ferry from Burlington, VT, so after bidding our adieus to the Nolette clan, we struck forth on US 2. On our way out of town we went through Rumford just to get a look at the field. It was sodden, and obviously unplayable even if it hadn’t been STILL RAINING...

So it was on to dinner at Crabby Jack’s in Gorham, NH. Lots of tourists trying to stay dry. Not a good time to be camping, motorcycling, or through-hiking. There were a couple of bedraggled AT hikers who I would have gladly given a ride had the van not already been full.

The ride through the rest of NH and VT was beautiful; rain let up and the green New England valleys looked a little like Brigadoon through the mist. We saw a young bull moose shortly after crossing into Vermont, followed closely by a bald eagle. I wondered what seeing them along our trail meant.

After a little bit of being turned around in Colchester, VT, we found the Motel 6 and made small talk with some other people who were headed to Maine from California. I told them I hoped they were bringing the good weather with them. Turns out they weren’t.

We got up and headed to the ferry terminal in Burlington (by the way, a very cool small city. I think we need to go spend some time there) and got breakfast while waiting for the ferry. By about 10:45 we were on the western shore of Lake Champlain, New England at our backs, and all of New York ahead. I planned to travel through the Adirondacks because you only go around once. Now we’ve done it, and I don’t ever need to do it again.

Got lunch at a small place in Russia or Poland, then jumped on 90 somewhere near Utica and headed west. Not a complaint or peep from the kids. Roughly 45 hours later we were in Niagara, and stopped for a couple of hours at the falls. I’d heard the American side was nasty and ugly, and the cities of Niagara and Buffalo really are. But the state park at the falls is very nice, and I much preferred being there than on the casino-and-high-rise-hotel-ridden Canadian side. It was somewhat surprising to see the Canadians outdoing us in ostentation. We decided to push through the remaining section of New York and into Erie, PA, where I knew of a place we could get good dinner along with wireless from our trip last year. I Googled a Motel 6 in Willoughby, OH, and set the coordinates in the GPS. After dinner it was another couple of hours of driving into torrential downpours, followed by eerie clear, until we were finally in bed.

Wednesday, 7/1. The first day of July, a milestone I hate. The road on this day would take us through Cleveland, which, at least from I-90, doesn’t appear to be anywhere near the armpit that Buffalo does. Ohio is pretty flat. And so is Indiana. There are Amish people in both states, and we saw an Amish carriage on one of the frontage roads in Indiana, as we whizzed by at 70 mph. After a meal at a Perkins Restaurant (I don’t really recommend it) in Indiana, we soldiered on to Chicago. Another thing I don’t recommend is Chicago at rush hour. Getting through Chicago took us roughly the same time it took us from Utica to Niagara Falls.

North of Chicago, everything widened out, and we flew by an empty Chrysler plant at about 73 mph. Then we bulled on to Madison, WI, another state capital, where Rach’s mom and uncle both attended UW-Madison. The kids were so incredibly good that we succumbed and let them go for a swim while I scouted out meal options near the motel. Found a franchise joint called Noodles & Company. It was excellent, and I want franchise rights in Maine.

The Motel 6 in Madison, WI is dumpy. Nasty, if you really want to know. Don’t go.

Thursday, July 2nd. I-90 northwest of Madison is really flat. There was a hill, but they seem to have torn it down to make a rest stop. Farther north, there are waterslide parks at every exit, with no discernible population for them to serve. It is weird.

We were once again excited to enter a new state, Minnesota, until I-694 turned into a parking lot. It was not so much fun at that point, as everyone seemed to be headed north and west of the city for the holiday weekend. About two hours from the ND border I decided I needed coffee and Cheerchick needed a new book. I found a Caribou Coffee place while Rach and the kids hit the MallWart. Mission accomplished on all fronts. Fargo beckoned. (You betcha!)

As we rolled into Fargo, we saw a Mexican restaurant, Acapulco, next door. Just what the doctor ordered. The kids went for a dip in the pool while some idiotic waster showed off for his girlfriend by diving and flipping into the 6’ deep pool. I removed myself because I didn’t want to be a Good Samaritan when he broke his neck. Predictably he seemed to have survived because God protects fools and children.

A fine Mexican meal and 2 Pacificos later, I was ready for sleep and a the next day’s long march to Bozeman. No internet in Fargo, by the way, so I had to get the weather report from the Weather Channel. Sorry it’s still raining. Apparently there was state-of-emergency-level flooding in Erie the day after we left. Apologies to those good people, too. We seem to be bringing it with us wherever we go.
Did I say something about Wisconsin being flat? Eastern North Dakota is FLAT. Holy crap. When it floods there, narrow rivers spill over their banks for MILES. No bison, though, except at the bison museum, which disappointed me.

After about three hours on the road in ND, there appeared small buttes, which provided for some relief. Rach took over driving in Bismarck, home of the butte-ugliest (see what I did there?) state capital building in the union. This one appears to have been designed by a depressed Soviet-era architect, circa 1957.

Somewhere west of Bismarck, but before the state line, the time zone changed again, from Central to Mountain. (We entered Central time in Indiana). This made our arrival in Bozeman before dark a much more certain thing.

As the landscape in ND got more interesting, about 30 miles from the Montana state line, we entered Theodore Roosevelt National Park. All of a sudden we were in painted canyons, with wild horses roaming around! It was amazing, beautiful, spectacular, and I now feel as though I need to return to southwestern ND some day. I was hoping that wouldn’t happen.

About half an hour across the Montana border is a small town called Glendive. It is the home of Makoshika State Park. Starting tomorrow I will be there for six days for a class on dinosaur paleontology for my master’s program. We stopped there for lunch just because. Lunch was okay, but nothing to write home about. Across the road from the restaurant where we ate was another restaurant that also contained a hotel and a casino. But the building looked a lot like Coulthard’s Pools. So apparently they can squeeze a whole lot of gaming fun into a small space out here in Big Sky.

I got back into the driver’s seat in Glendive, since Rach doesn’t like the 75 mph speed limit out here.

Another 2.5 hours down the road we stopped at Pompey’s Pillar, where William Clark of Lewis & Clark fame climbed a 200 foot cliff to carve his name in the sandstone on his way home from the coast. I don’t normally condone graffiti, but this is fairly excusable. I’ll probably blog Lewis & Clark later on; I have a lot of thoughts on the subject, but now is not the time.

After Pompey’s Pillar, we heard thunder and jumped back in the car. Immediately we heard a National Weather Service severe weather warning for Billings, about 25 miles east of us. Not only were there damaging winds, hail, and cloud-to-ground lightning, but there had also been observed a funnel cloud touching down. This plains stuff is out of my comfort zone. After stopping for gas in a town that was the Montanan equivalent of Carthage--small population and one gas station that didn’t take credit cards--we saw a pickup truck with an anemometer and other meteorologic equipment stop at an intersection up the road from us. We decided to try to talk with the driver and assess the risk up ahead. But the truck sped off onto I-94, and we did the same, keeping it in sight. That was the only section of road where the speed limit was 75 and I actually sped, figuring the truck was probably trying to find out where the storm was likely to go, rather than going directly into its path. As we headed west, the storm appeared to move south. At times there were ugly comma-shaped clouds, but they broke off and nothing seemed to develop into funnels. We forged on, and as the Rockies came into sight, new energy overcame us. Or else it was the adrenaline rush of New Englanders faced with severe midwestern weather. Whatever.

A couple of times the weather over the Crazy Mountains--I kid you not--looked really nasty, and threatened torrential downpours. It never materialized, though, and after a false alarm of a dinner stop in Big Timber, we jumped back on 94 to finish the last hour to Bozeman.

Bozeman Pass is unreal. On the way up, we kept seeing areas to pull off and put on chains. And we kept ascending. Near the top of the pass is an historical marker for Bozeman Pass. Bozeman was a bit of a scoundrel, and not someone you should name your city after. Nonetheless, the valley below shone brightly, with huge mountains to our south veiled in ominous gray clouds. Our descent into Bozeman felt much like a final approach at Las Vegas: a few turbulent bumps, and really fast. At the first Bozeman exit, we hopped off and found ourselves on West Main St. And the first restaurant we came to was the Montana Ale Works. Think Sunday River Brew Pub in a hip college town. We’ll be going back...

Anyway, Beth and James live about 2.5 miles from there, through suburban neighborhoods. James’ directions were good, and we pulled in at about 8:30 to a power outage. The grass in their back yard was soft, though, and all I needed to be comfortable.

Yesterday, the 4th, can be summed up thusly: two sisters and their high school friend, all of their husbands, and their eight kids, aged 9 months to eleven years. 7 boys and one girl. But Cheerchick had a great time getting acquainted with her youngest cousin. The boys played lots of wiffleball, hooted, hollered, rode bikes and scooters to the Museum of the Rockies, had a full day of gazing at dinosaur bones, made “waterworks” (food coloring dumped into a garden hose and then discharged, giving about 1.2 seconds of colored water), had a cookout, and ended up at a huge fireworks show in the center of Bozeman at 10 pm because that’s when it is sufficiently dark to do fireworks out here.

It’s been a big week, and in about an hour and a half I go to have dinner with some of the people I’ll be living with for the next week: as I mentioned earlier, it’s Dino Camp this week. So I’ve driven 3/5 of the way across the country with my family to spend a week away from them. Seems odd. I’ll try to keep you updated, but have no way of knowing what the internet access will be.

Hope it dries up at home, while I’m in the desert trying to stay hydrated. The irony is not lost on me.