Our half mile tour of Hell Creek

Just a short entry

to cover the half day spent in the Hell Creek area of north east Montana.

I will backtrack in my next post because our baculite hunt requires lots of photos of excellent finds.

The most interesting thing about this area was that we pulled of the 2-lane highway, parked the truck, and then spent the whole day within sight of the vehicle.  It seemed that behind every hill was a completely unique set of rocks.

The concretion above was perched on a pedestal of hardened sand.  

Don tried digging into the "dunes" and said they are somewhat hollow inside but he didn't have a flashlight so that's as much info as I got.

Meanwhile, I was poking around

collecting pieces of selenite, shards of petrified wood, and sparkly rocks of all sorts.

I found one isolated rock that was composed entirely

 of large leaf fossils.

There wasn't another rock like it within our half mile range.

Pam found a hill that had a swath of interesting pumice and lava rock.

The close proximity to the truck meant

that I was never more than a few minutes away

from a dry bologna sandwich and a warm can of Squirt.

This marked the turning point of our trip.

It was time to begin the long journey back to the Denver airport,

and since we were worn out, we decided to drive straight through

 without stopping at any more fossil sites.

I had one last excellent find behind the Glascow, MT Shopko.

They were switching brands of seed and throwing away all the packets of NK seeds they had in stock.  Pam and I grabbed as many relevant packets as possible.  I still regret not loading them all in the truck and bringing them home to share.  What a waste!

We spend one night in a very primitive old school RV park.

While I appreciated the cool, old-school signage, I did not appreciate the very old-school showers.  

I chose to stay stinky until we got to our next KOA which was probably the nicest one of the whole trip.

Clean showers AND ice cream?

Love.

Along the way, we stopped at the

T-Rex Natural History Museum and rock shop

in Ranchester, Wyoming.

This is a very small shop with a tiny museum side featuring casts of t-rex and triceratops parts.  The owner, Mike Dawson, charges $2 for a presentation and it was great!  He didn't talk too much which is crucial for holding my attention, and he really knew his topic.  If you're ever in the area, pop in and check it out. 

The end of the road

is apparently inhabited by rattlesnakes but we didn't see any on this journey.

Next week: more baculites than you can shake a stick at!