Dino Dig

Okay, we didn't really go digging for dinosaurs, but we did go looking for some trilobites, brachiopods, crinoids, and bryozoans at a local fossil park last week. I've heard great things about the park from several friends and we decided to give it a go. Last Tuesday was a bit overcast and it threatened to rain all day, which meant that there weren't very many people when we got there. We had been told to bring buckets and shovels for the kids, though you don't really dig, at least not deep-- using a shovel to kind of scrape around is okay.

 I wasn't sure how B would do since he caught a little of the bug C had at my parents' house a couple of weeks ago. He is also teething. So he is quite the hot mess. He was surprisingly into it despite his runny nose, cough, and blistering gums. I guess if you give a boy some rocks...

 The park is located on a hillside on ten acres of donated land. C called it a mountain as we worked our way to the top.

 A lot of the fossils are just lying on the ground. Some are imbedded in larger rocks. We didn't bring any big rocks home, but C has quite the collection of small bryozoans and brachiopods. We didn't have success finding trilobites or crinoids. B just picked up a bunch of random rocks for his bucket-- most didn't have any fossils, but he sure had fun.

 The view from the top was pretty amazing! Even on a cloudy day we could see quite far.

We headed to the library after our visit to the fossil park and I found a couple of good kids' books that explained fossils a little more in depth to C. Now she wants to know when we can go to a fossil park that has bones and dinosaurs.

~One Ordinary Mom