I may have mentioned this before, but a couple of days ago when I was standing in line for dinner, God lined things up so that I chatted with the people behind me in line and learned about American Fossil (because they like to go there), which is just past Fossil Butte Monument. Before talking with them, I was researching things to do, and I literally had Fossil Butte National Monument pulled up on my phone when I started talking with them.
That story means a lot to me because for multiple people in the group, fossil digging was a highlight for our trip. Personally, it was my favorite part. We woke up early, and were out the door before 7AM. We arrived at American Fossil at about 8:30. On the way, we saw a bunch of cows, including young cows that were so cute:
Once we arrived, they taught us about the fossils (they are 53 million years old), and they told us about the types of things we would find (fish, turtles, stingrays, poop etc). They also gave us instruction about how to hit the chisel and split rocks into thin layers.
Once we were all set and received our instructions, we got cracking! Here is some video footage:
Clark and Soren blew us all away with a whole fish they found in one of their rocks. Here is Swathi holding it after it was cut down as well as a close-up.
Here is a really great one that Lydia found. I was so happy she kept going even after she was frustrated at not finding much. This was a great find!
Also, Swathi found a whole fish, and Lydia got a very good looking fish as well. When we were all done cracking rocks (for about an hour), we loaded up the fossils we wanted to keep into a cart and then our guide cut them into smaller pieces for us.
The group loved fossil hunting. It was such an awesome experience, and it was made even more amazing by our subsequent visit to Fossil Butte National Monument. That amazing site had a timeline of the world that started way out on the road as you headed into the National Monument. Then, once you arrived, there was a walking path that covered the most recent 500 million years or so (the signs on the road were in the billions). The signs talked about the different living things, geological and meteorological facts, and extinction events etc. It was amazing to comprehend how much happened on our planet before humans even arrived.
I believe Fossil Butte is located at the same ancient dried up lake that we were digging at, so the fossils seen below are (I believe) at the same time period as our fossils (about 53 million years ago).
I loved the below display and it seems like the kids did to. I just loved envisioning what the world was like 53 million years ago before the lake dried up.
Outside Clarissa was so cute looking out of the binoculars and so I got a ton of pictures and this video.
Here are some more pictures that I got from the visitors center. The first one is a cross section of the type of limestone that we split looking for fossils.
The kids played hide and seek outside and it was adorable so I took a couple of videos.
Video of kids playing hide and seek
After that, Lily, Lydia, Clarissa, Ammon and I went to the beach while the others stayed in at the Bear Lake House.
It was a wonderful day!