On Vacation!!!

We started this morning in Billings, Montana. Our hotel had a couple of cool specimens from Jordan, MT (The town we were digging at yesterday).   Today was a day primarily for driving with a pit stop in Thermopolis, Wyoming at the Wyoming Dinosaur Center.  After Thermopolis we drove through a good portion of Wyoming and hunkered down for the night in Kemmerer.   For more photos of our adventures, click here.  Today's State Count: 2 Montana, Wyoming Total Trip State Count 6: Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, Montana, Wyoming

  We left our Airbnb quite early this morning as we needed to be at Cowboy Dinosaur Digs by 8 am. The decor in one of the bathrooms was quite fitting :).  We met up with Jason Phipps who took us to dig dinosaur bones in a channel deposit on his property. This type of hunting for bones is very different from the experience at Baisch. Instead of hiking and walking around, you sit and dig... or in our case lay down and dig in the deposit layer.  It is not as common to find big bones in the deposit layer, but we found a ton of smaller things... including: Hadrosaur Teeth Ankylosaur Teeth Triceratops Teeth Stingray Teeth Fish Teeth Salamander Teeth T-rex Teeth Raptor Teeth Champsosaur Vertebrae Fish Vertebrae Vertebrae Process from Edmontosaurus or Triceratops Triceratops Frill Unidentified Species Toe Bone Turtle bone Lots of random pieces of bone. This was our first trip to Cowboy Dinosaur Digs, but it won't be our last.  The drive was gorgeous on our drive to Billings....

After our long day in the sun as amateur paleontologists, we decided tp take it slow this morning with a lazy morning at the hotel.  After check out, we made our way to the Glendive Dinosaur Museum. Even though we do not necessarily agree with their ideas, they do have a great collection of fossils.  Then, we went next door to the Frontier Gateway Museum.  A stop to Glendive is not complete without stopping at Hell Creek Music and More. We did not take any photos there this time, but did walk away with a few purchases :).  We also stopped to pick up a few totes for our fossils and more water. (with this heat, we are going through it fast!)  The temps hit 102 this afternoon, so we decided to keep our hunt for ammonites short. It sure was hot out in the sun! We did find a few specimens and will definitely be back when it isn't quite so hot! Our first injury and a "code red" of the trip, Liv had a small cut that was easily fixed with a band-aid.  Before leavin...

Today was amazing..... We were successful in our quest to find dinosaurs. Shana from Baisch Dinosaur Digs was a phenomenal guide, as always :).  Today we collectively found: a Triceratops Beak (Liv found this, it was amazing, but super rare and stayed with the team at Baisch. It will be on display there!) Triceratops teeth Edmontosaurus teeth Crocodillian teeth T-rex teeth Ray teeth Lots of random pieces of bone. Triceratops or Edmontosaurus Vertebrae Champsosaurus Verebrae Crocodillian Vertebrae Pachycephalosaurus Vertebrae Mystery Vertebra Fish Vertebrae Mystery Metatarsils Triceratops Rib Chunk Gar scales Alligator Scutes Turtle Scutes Corprolite (fossilized dino poop) Agatized Wood Petrified Wood If you would like to see more of our photos, they can be found by clicking here . (We did not take as many photos today, as we were very busy looking for dinosaur bones!) Today's State Count: 1, Montana Total Trip State Count:  5,  Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota...