Day 7

From: Marco
Date: July 7, 2000
Subject: Prospecting at Theropod Flats

Today went off great. Right now it's 11:12 PM. We had many things happen to us.

For example I was just in my host brothers' room. We were taking digital pictures and looking through their Star Wars collection. They seem to be big fans — we are also going to the movie theater tomorrow (the show starts at 7:00 PM).

I'm excited because there I will see other people. This is a small town — they only play movies Thursday and Friday [and] they only play one movie at a time.

Today was Cory and Roman's (my host brothers) first day at their jobs — they pull weeds for farmers. They said they'll be doing that for about three weeks.

I left at 8:10 this morning for the OTM. I rode Cory's bike there — it's not very far away. I feel that after this trip I will be in very good shape.

[When] I got there, no-one was there, but Susan Luinstra (assistant instructor at the OTM) arrived shortly after I did. [It] turned out that we had a new group of people [to take on expedition] — two of them had done the museum's [two-day dinosaur paleontology course] about four years ago. The [other members of the group were] a lady and her five or six year-old [child].

I loaded the van. When Shureice arrived, we set up and the [expedition] group of four got an introduction to the activities and ... took a bone/rock quiz. The quiz is just to show them examples of rock and real bone.

We loaded the van and took plaster because a jacket is ready to come out at the JP [dig] site. We went there, we've done that for one group already, and there they find and excavate bone.

I was amazed at the site. I know Jack Conrad (Project Exploration Co-captain) will be happy to hear we are gonna take out the jacket that he found on his first expedition here last year in Choteau.

Today one guy pried out a big chunk of sandstone (really hard concretion) and it had marks of what might be ribs under it. So, there are two long bones that are lying side by side that we discovered. I believe there is something in the JP site.

After that, at about 1:00 PM, we went to lunch — we ate at The Log Cabin [restaurant], so no bag lunch for us! Then usually we take the group out to prospect; we took them to Theropod Flats. There they found lots of bone, and teeth fragments. Then a toe bone of a cow (maybe) and lots of burned fossilized tree.

After that we went on to the museum. Ahh, I was tired, [but] Shureice and [I] had to stay and clean the van. Then we went inside to the museum to email our journals. I put on Instant Messenger on the laptop and was talking to a friend for about 20 minutes. When Shureice started to leave, I grabbed the bike and we headed towards my place.

[When we got there], it turn[ed] out my family rented a movie (Sleepy Hollow), so Shureice and I went to Happy Jack's bakery and ... got some free cookies. Then [we went] back to my place.

I had to borrow the digital camera from Shureice [to take] pictures of my family. Then we went to see their Star Wars collection and their books. I showed them pictures of back home in Chicago.

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