Dino Dig

Today Leia Rose and I went to a REAL dinosaur dig!!! This was an absolute dream come true for her!!! The Museum of Life and Science had been advertising this for quite a while, and I'm REALLY glad we got there kind of later in the day because it was just when many other people were leaving. Anyway, we headed RIGHT for the dinosaur dig site. This is part of the dinosaur theme that the museum plans to unveil next summer. (We might not be here, so I was NOT going to let her miss this "preview" day.) This dig site was AMAZING! Quite honestly, I expected it to be like the dig site in Dinoland USA in Disneyworld where there's sand covering some cement dinosaur bones that you can excavate OR I thought it would be continually "stocked" during the day with staff throwing handfulls of teeth/bones in. Nope. The stuff in here was REAL, and anything you found, you could KEEP! We were told that we would find all sorts of fossils: bones, shells, sand dollars, sharks teeth, sting ray tails, etc. Leia was so excited, she could hardly contain herself.
It wasn't long before a real paleontologist came over and worked with us for about a half-an-hour teaching us how to find stuff. He said to just "scan" without digging. That's the way to spot the really great stuff. Right off the bat, he helped Leia Rose find a few shark's teeth. (Some people had been digging for an hour and had only found one.) He said it would REALLY be great to come after a rain, because all of the dirt would sift to the bottom and the teeth would all gleam. And he gave us this really great guide to determine what we had found. (Leia and I need to work a bit harder on that tomorrow.)
Here he is helping Leia Rose find another shark's tooth.
We had all sorts of tools to dig with, at one point we had a big shovel & a sifter, . . . but our tools of choice were a stick (Leia) and a big flat rock (me). ; )

Quite honestly, this trip may have just solidified Leia's desire to be a paleontologist. I told her that we would stay at that dig site for as long as she wanted. We were there for TWO HOURS. I was happy to keep to my word, but I couldn't help commenting once or twice that I wish I had worn cotton (I was sweating buckets!) and wondering why other people didn't think to pick dig sites in the shade and talking about how dusty and dirty my feet and pants were getting. Leia's comments were always, "This is great!" "I could really DO this job!" "I don't mind the dustyness at all!" "This is what a paleontologists job is really like? No, I don't think this is boring just sitting here not finding anything. I might find something, so I don't mind looking down for a long time!"



Just a side note entitled "Reality vs. Leia": Leia was convinced that she was finding true dinosaur fossils. ; ) The first sharks tooth I found, Leia said, "THAT is a tooth of a baby raptor. Do you hear me? That is the tooth of a baby raptor!!!" So cute! And then it was, "No, Mamma, this isn't a rock! It's a skull of a compsognathus!" ; ) Well, the reality of the situation is (and I know this because I heard a few employees talking about it) that this was a few tons of marine "trash" that had been sifted out of what I guess was usable fine sand. I'm not sure what they would have used the sand for. Construction, maybe? Anyway, this was the stuff they couldn't use. All from the ocean floor. But everything WAS really old & petrified, . . . REAL fossils! ; )

Here is what we found:
We found 25 sharks teeth and two pieces of sting ray!!!
Here are the biggest three teeth close up. With the museum staff's help, we were able to identify all three. The middle one, the biggest, is an extinct great white! Our claim to fame!!! The one on the left is a requiem shark and the one on the right is a tiger shark. REALLY cool!

And here is an online fossil identification sheet that we continue to use to identify them similar to the one we were given today:
I am going to save Leia's other all-important finds for a post tomorrow because she REALLY wanted to clean those herself. ; )


Leia's one complaint was that, because she spent two hours at the dig site, that didn't leave much time to explore the rest of the museum before it closed. But we did manage to do a few fun things . . .
Leia was mesmerized by the ant tunnels. (But she kept asking me, "Why don't you like cockroaches, Mamma? Why don't you like cockroaches? I just don't, okay?) ; )
And Leia got a REAL butterfly to sit right on her finger! ("And then it pooped.") ; )
We had to explore the dinosaur section, too, of course. (I just love taking pictures like this. It reminds me of the one at the Museum of Natural History in DC where I took the one of Leia and Brian "in" the shark's mouth.)

Leia was THRILLED to put her hand in a mayasura footprint!
Here is Leia in the middle of one of her traditional laughs. She said, "Mamma, why is that turtle in a box?" "Because it's a box turtle, Leia." "HA!!!"
Leia Rose was also REALLY interested in seeing the exhibit about space travel. Here she is in the life-size mockup of one of the first lunar modules.
She was also REALLY excited to touch this real meteorite that fell to the Earth in Mexico. It was 93% iron. Interesting!

And, of course, I decided to let her pick something out from the museum store, . . . "as long as you accept Mamma's suggestions." Leia agreed. My first suggestion was a stomp rocket ($11.99). Nope. How about a rock collection ($2.99)? Nope. Leia really wanted a space shuttle set ($40). Nope. So, she begrudgingly chose a girl astronaut ($9.99), . . . only to change to a rock collection, . . . only to change to (while we were in line) a stomp rocket. Yay! Now she was finally excited. And I was SO glad she chose this. I knew that Kevin had gotten one and that it was GREAT fun! Annie might like it, too! We'll see . . .