Desperate times and desperate measures

The rains have started!

     The end of the Peace River fossil season is fast approaching and my reaction has been to push the envelope with the usual results: jacked-up back and wasted trips.  The lesson here is You can't force it.

     Pam was kind enough to escort me to a very interesting locale and we had to do some Indiana Jones moves to get there.

     Clambering down an embankment, I snagged my ancient, beloved North Face shorts.  

Dang!

     I've already tried and rejected 2 pairs of replacement shorts from WalMart.  If I didn't have to try everything on, I could just order some shorts and be done with it.  Oh well...it was worth it to get to the digging area.

     One of Pam's friends found the site and they had pretty much dug it out but I was grateful for the dregs and what beautiful dregs they were.

     Due to the clay surrounding these fossils, they had very different colors from the usual gray/black of Peace River fossils.  The tiger shark tooth at the top of this photo measures a meaty 1.25" across.

     I was told that the site quickly yielded dozens of horse teeth but luckily, they missed a couple!

     Quite a quantity of my favorite turtle scute.  The fossils lack the high gloss I'm used to but the variety of colors more than makes up for it.

Giant armadillo scutes.

Great colors on these odds and ends.

These shark teeth will get their own spot in the curio cabinet.

     I missed out on the large makos with amazing colors but still snagged these 2 delicate makos, each measuring about an inch in length.

     In my "spare" time, frantic to beat the rains, I dug in my usual haunts.  I didn't find much, but what I found was really nice.

Another near-perfect megalodon tooth.  I only have about 3 that are this good.

     Look at this beautiful chunk of mammoth tooth.  You can see the high gloss finish of the Peace River and the translucence in the layers of enamel.  Nice!

Some kind of toe bone.

Ancient, worn piece of coral.  I might try to polish this and bring out that pattern.

Molar from a 3-toed horse.

     I feel like I just started this season and now it's on the wane.  The river was so high from a weekend of heavy rain that a family of manatees cruised past my kayak (startled me!) and I came across one of the biggest gators I've personally seen in the Peace; it was Cape-Canaveral-National-Seashore big!

Heading home, this guy's truck made me laugh:

     I might think a wrecker is sexy if I'm stranded somewhere but, regardless, the message got me out of my rainy day funk.