Why not head to the Fossil Park in Floyd County IA. in an effort to hunt some of the elusive little buggers? We've had some great times there in the past so why not try it in the present.
We've gone to the Devonian Fossil Gorge by the Coralville dam which needs to be explored in much great detail by the Mobile Chaos Unit, but we weren't headed that direction this time...
I believe the last time we were at the Fossil Park in Floyd county was the summer of 2011 and about 5 months before we roped in a special little Chinese boy to help fill out our family.
Robby got sick that time as we had picked up some Subway sammy's on the way and his was apparently tainted with something. The ill effects of which were executed upon the top of one of the hills and then later at G'ma & G'pa's house as we went there when done hunting.
So, with China boy in tow, off we go for fossil hunting version 2013! What could possibly go wrong?!?
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| The "boys" feeling all spry and sassy after eating our packed lunches and prior to any real hiking. It's hot, but not crazy hot like last time... |
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| Rob looks HUGE compared to the last time we were here nearly two years ago. |
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| Mom obviously has the camera as it's a shot of the "boys" again as we're ascending up one of the hills from the bottom of the ravine. That's our dog, Rosey (a.k.a. The Beast) to my right in the photo. I got the impression that she HATED us for this little excursion!! :-) |
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| The hippie boy, Robby, climbing up one of the many hills although he does not appear to have his nose to the proverbial fossilized grindstone in this pic... |
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| Momma captured Daddy, Caleb and the Beast as we were traversing the lower levels of the quarry searching for the elusive fossils. |
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| A self portrait since the nearest people to take a shot with the camera were a hill and valley away. Robby is holding a piece of terracotta from somewhere in the past. He was as impressed with it as he was the fossils and we found some impressive fossils on this trip! |
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| Daddy, Caleb and the Beast yet again... from a distance. |
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| Mr. Cutie Pa-Tutie Robert James Schmitz standing atop one of the hills after a good climb/hunt. |
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| This is probably a shot of Robby once Momma told him that we were going to go hiking once Daddy and Caleb caught back up with them. |
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| A hot little Chinese boy!! =-) |
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| After the hike to the kilns, Rosey finds a nice cool spot to lay down in the grass in a vain attempt to cool herself off. She got about 1.5 minutes and seemed disgusted when we started to leave! |
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| Robby and Caleb in front of the kilns. This is the first time that we've hiked down to see them and quite frankly, they're much larger than I had imagined they would be. Go figure... |
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| The hike back up from the kilns, of team #1. |
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| Calebber, asking a "pointed" question. No. Seriously. He was asking Daddy a pointed question about a fossil that he has in his right hand!! You can sort of tell from the landscape here that there are MANY fossils to be discovered yet. Which means that we should have at least a dozen or so visits yet to complete our quest(s). :-) |
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| Some of the local landscape... |
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| A bit more of the local landscape with Momma, Robby, & Caleb hiking in front of dear ol' Dad. |
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| It's hard to tell here, but this is a main waterway for rain water to flow on down into the valley and thus, flush out new fossils as it goes! |
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| Caleb, not to be undersold, posing in front of the same waterway. |
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| This is Daddy and Caleb posing in front of the ravine that we climbed down. It's hard to determine just how steep and occasionally treacherous it can be (that's probably exaggerating a bit) but it really doesn't do it justice for how difficult it can be. |
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| As we return to the van... a quick shot between either boy complaining that they're tired, thirsty, heroic and whatever else they might come up with. |
Regardless of our finds and habitual troubles finding the place, it's a great time every time we go there and this, being Calebber's first go round, it was absolutely wonderful.
Can't wait to go again!
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