I just got back from a 3 day weekend trip to Central Pennsylvania to satisfy my fossil needs. Maeve graciously let me dig around her property and I found a few other spots within 20 miles of her house. We even convinced Dr. Circus to meet us for lunch! It had been Fiddler's Green since I'd seen her and it was great to catch up.

I found the layer for a really cool trilobite (Cryptolithus sp.) that is in much older rock than I find in Michigan. I've got probably 30 pounds of slabs to work through and see if I have a complete one. I'll post some pics of those when I get them cleaned. For now, here's the Motley Crew.

Maeve and Mr. Devlin. He kept saying it was "the most awesome day times three" and "Holy Crap" at every fossil we found.


We had lunch at a fun micro brewery. Don't hurt the beer!


This is outside the restaurant. They had a huge mural in the parking lot. And Dr. Circus blinked.

Oh! That creek! Now I remember. I had a lovely time and I must make it to State College sometime soon, 'cos meeting Circus was awesome! Matt was a delightful guest and I only regret that I didn't fee him better.

Circus and Devlin had fun talking about Transformers during lunch and I mentioned I drew my own when I was a kid (and made Lego models). She said she never saw them when I posted them maybe 3 years ago.

Professor Circus gave me an assignment to repost my Transformers.

 Yes.  I was and am a geek.  I was good with spatial drawings as a kid. 

And the Power bar requiring the secret decoder!

I remember the power bars!

Great pics, guys, looks like great fun was had by all.

Professor Circus is also studying/teaching Human Geography. We talked a lot about maps and I mentioned I used to draw maps of our stick forts and the fields behind our house.

She then gave me another assignment.

Spy Base I - Impenetrable stick fort with resting room! Spying is tiring!


I then took some drafting classes and my maps improved. However, I was still a geek. The gravel pit is now three McMansions. I never did figure out if it was a fox hole or coyote.

I draw maps! Well, more like I draw dungeons and encounter tables, and it's my absolute least favourite part of prep-work, such that I often just crib my dungeon outlines from an adventure my players will never play, but occasionally I do draw them.

Great pictures!

Looks like fun was had!

*snif*

I's jealous. I wanna go dig fossils!!!!
*cries*

graf don't wanna me to go get more rocks though
*pouts*

Looks like y'all had fun though...
really would LOVE to see the fossils you got Matt..

dude, you really need to come over here and go to the natural history museum.

Devlin is in the driveway with his bag o' rocks, sifting for fossils. He remembered that 'the fossils will be shiny in water'

This makes me happy.

quote:

Originally posted by silly punk:
dude, you really need to come over here and go to the natural history museum.

Been there, done that. Very cool place.

you need some pictures of rocks on here

but the people ones are great too!

quote:

Originally posted by halucinagenia:
you need some pictures of rocks on here

but the people ones are great too!

I was working on it!

I worked on this practice piece tonight to see how the matrix behaved. It actually cleaned very easy for me. I spent about 2 hours playing around with them. These are all molts, but there are three heads flipped upside down and one normal head. Cryptolithus have very small bodies, long spines off their cheeks and holes in the nose plate to filter water and mud. They're one of the coolest looking trilobites.



I also found this mass death plate. They may all be molts as well, but there's at least 30 of them. Each one of those bumps is a nose. I need to figure out the best way to clean this one.



There's plenty more to clean. I hauled back a lot of rock.

That's fricken awesome!!! I definitely need to bring The Girls up your way some time and have you take us on a field trip. That looks like so much fun.

quote:

Originally posted by Matt Cable:
There's plenty more to clean. I hauled back a lot of rock.

quote:

Originally posted by JP:
That's fricken awesome!!! I definitely need to bring The Girls up your way some time and have you take us on a field trip. That looks like so much fun.

I would love that.

Be careful. I might make a trip to Missouri to do some fossil hunting.

Elephant Rocks isn't terribly far, and quite cool to see, though no excavating I'm afraid, just looking and climbing.

(this has nothing to do with rocks)

Matt, light brown yarn(left) or dark brown yarn(right)?



or there's a lovely grey under there, too. The yarn is much more subtle in person, with slightly mottled tones.