American Fossil Dig and Campout

 Last summer I took the kids to the park one day, and for some reason Zander was sitting with me in the shade and randomly said he wished he could find his own fossils. I had just heard about this place that a friend took her family to, so I said, "We can!" That set our camping trip in motion. This trip was a year in the making and I was just as giddy to go as the kids were. This is something I've always wanted to do myself, so check that off my bucket list! I asked several family members if they wanted to come with us, but sadly there were no takers. So I called up Alissa to see if she and her boys wanted to join us, and they did!

We met up at camp about 45 minutes past Kemmerer, WY where the fossils were. We camped right on the Green River. The Jenks brought kayaks, fishing poles, and made crawdad traps. My kids were in heaven. They had a lot of fun with their cousins. We roasted weenies and marshmallows the night we got there. I brought waffle cones to make campfire smores cones and they are my new favorite way to eat smores. 

The next morning was our fossil dig. We got to go dig for over two hours. It was slightly overcast and in the 70s--just perfect for having to sit in the sun hammering at rocks. It was a really dirty job, but so much fun! You just never know what you're going to find. Stephen and I had to help Hannah and Grayson for most of it, but everyone found so many fossils. They had just finished digging up a fresh load of rocks before our time was up, so we found some really big rocks to chisel. Zander, Lucas, and Archer got a great big one and worked on it all together for a while, and it paid off because they found a spot with three fish right by each other and another fish on the back of the slab. Zander was ecstatic. Lucas found a cool one with a dark ring and a fish in the corner of it. Hannah found a bunch of fish scales, and Grayson found a Banana fish. 

When we ended our session they had a cutting station set up with a few different saws so we could cut down the rock and make our fossils look nice for displaying and traveling safely home. While we were in town we had a picnic at the park and then took the kids to Fossil Butte Monument. They had a huge collection of fossils from all the quarries in the area. Lots of fish, birds, amphibians, insects, plants, and mammals. The kids spent some time doing their junior ranger program and became Junior Rangers complete with a badge by the time we left. It was just so fun to get out and be in nature and let loose.

Within the first five minutes of getting to camp Grayson found a dead deer and had to show everyone.