Mission Apollo

The message on this coffee cup

really encapsulates how I'm feeling at the end of July...

(and not in a cute, sexy way)

     Yes, yes, this Florida summer is just as it should be:  blisteringly hot and punctuated by outbursts of dangerous lightening.  I was reading a post on The Fossil Forum and the originator of the thread invited everyone down to south Florida to dig on land sites with him.  I was tempted...but only for a second.  I imagined myself laid out on the sand like a piece of raw meat in a frying pan, trying to remember, through a haze of heat stroke, exactly what I was supposed to be looking for.

Pass!

     Yet, when I found myself on the Tampa side of the state this weekend, I blew past my Orlando exit and continued down I-75 to Apollo Beach.

I needed some fossils in a bad way!

     A couple of years ago I spent a summer scouring Apollo Beach while I waited for the waters of the Peace River to recede.  Apollo Beach is an ugly, bizarre place but the small strip of easily accessible sand yields some great little fossils, "little" being the operative word.  I've made no secret of my disdain for 1/4" screen when I'm digging in the Peace River; the tiny stuff frustrates me and my search for that big perfect meg (that I still haven't found!).  However, after my recent visit to Apollo Beach, I'm rethinking my feelings about "micro" fossils.

     Look at this tiny incisor; smaller that a squirrel, bigger than a mouse.  Maybe a Pleistocene rat?  It has beautiful sheen and color and I can't wait to buy a magnifying glass so I can actually see it.

And I believe this is the smallest alligator osteoderm ever.

     I'm currently reading Florida's Geological Treasures by Iris Tracy Comfort and she writes, "Because of the ample supply and...ease of collecting and storing, many collectors have...begun to specialize in microscopic material."

     I'm not ready to commit to a microscopic fossil collection (sounds like a migraine in the making) but I can now see the allure of the tiny fossil.  Next time I'm in the area, I'm going to scoop some of the beach "slurry" into a bucket and take it home for closer inspection.

Armadillo scutes, Apollo Beach, Florida

Take stock

It's summer.

That about sums it up.

     Considering the ferocity of the daily thunderstorms we've been having in the Orlando area, I'm surprised that the Peace River gage isn't reading higher, but it's still 3 feet higher than a depth I can dig in.  And, of course, it's wicked hot.  It was around this time last year that I spent a day in Jacksonville avoiding snakes on Quarantine Island and rabid locals on Ponte Vedra Beach.  I'm thinking JAX again but someplace different...

     I've pursued a couple of Jacksonville-based members on The Fossil Forum and one responded with a few coordinates of known fossil locations so I'm going to line up a weekend in August to explore.

     I also remembered that my brother's first wife is a geologist and she used to hunt the Kansas road cuts for cool fossil specimens.  Google brought her up on the first try and I contacted her for the first time in many years.  She is still the same intelligent, kind person I remembered, and she's still a geologist.  Hopefully, I will be able to tag along on one of her student fossil hunts in Kansas sometime soon and she also told me how much she enjoys visits to the Wyoming quarries.  As usual, all I need is money!  It's nice to dream about, though.

     I did some arranging of my fossil cabinet and peaked into the box of Apollo Beach finds for the first time in 2 years.

I forgot I found these awesome little armadillo scutes.

I need to pull everything out of that box and take stock.

     I finally made it down to a fossil club meeting in Ft. Myers and bought 4 more riker boxes with the goal of laying out all the shark teeth that I have deemed to be particularly beautiful.

These are the best of my best.

     I ran out of riker boxes before I got to the lemon shark teeth and I keep megs and makos in my little curio cabinet but it's wonderful to be able to store these gems in a way that makes them so visually accessible.

     If only I didn't have to work!

I need time to explore the rivers to the north and west of me, too.

I need to dig!!!