Crumpled Home

With both our children being dinosaur obsessed and planning to become future palaeontologists, one of the big attractions to the Cody, Wyoming area was the dinosaurs.

Eighty million years ago, this place must have been absolutely infested with the creatures, because the area was littered with fossils, both above and below the ground. The place is still crawling with dinosaurs though, as shops and museums dedicated to the extinct creatures have sprung up everywhere.

We stopped in one of the local stores, which sported several large fossils (as well as a bizarre selection of South American jewelery and African trinkets). We also spent some time at the Wyoming Dinosaur Centre where they have an active dig site, a lab to work on the fossils, and an amazing museum full of complete skeletons and reproductions. Finally, we were taken on a fantastic fossil hunting expedition of our own through the middle of nowhere by John, a local paleontology enthusiast. Thanks John!

The dino shop had a full sized T. Rex skeleton on display. It took up most of the room!

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On the weekend, we stopped at a chalk outcropping near Gingin to hunt for fossils. Our main goal was to find some shark teeth, but we weren’t successful. We did find a large assortment of crinoid bits, sea urchin spines, pieces of giant clams, and rhizoliths.

We headed across the fields to the chalk outcropping.

"Wait for me!" The thick mud in the field slowed RJ down a bit.

"Where'd they go?" RJ got to the top and had to search for the other members of our expedition.

LR was already hard at work digging out crinoid stems down in the abandonded quarry.

RJ was desperate to find some shark teeth. "The hammer goes BOOM!"

At one point, RJ found slugs everywhere.

"Can we keep them? They're cute."

Stomp! Squish! Stomp! Squish! Stomp! Squish!

With a bucket full of fossils and some very muddy boots, it was time to head home.