Paleontology Day 4 - Catherine Hudson

Our second day in the field was very much the same as the first. We woke up, against our will, at 6:45 to Dr. Ott shouting from downstairs up to our place in the silo, telling us to get up and at them. This morning's breakfast consisted of more southern delights - breakfast tacos and some fresh fruit. We left the ranch at exactly 8:02, 2 min later then our goal 8:00 sharp but 1 min earlier than the previous day (improvement!). We once again met with David Temple and the paleontologist crew at the Whiteside museum and then drove over to the digging site all together. Once at the site, we immediately got to work on various different projects. I worked with Emily, Ren, Asa, and Dr. Ott to continue the digging out of the plastered jacket that we started yesterday. This process was very long and tedious, taking us all day, and will still need to be finished tomorrow. Throughout an entire day of digging around the plastered jacket, we mostly hit rock and dirt. Our greatest find was a coprolite (fossilized poop) that we almost threw out thinking it was dirt, but then was spotted last minute by David Temple's trained eye. A more exciting find was Mr. Roddy's Dimetrodon spine that was uncovered about a foot long by the end of the day. Today we broke for lunch around noon and drove back into Seymour. We picked up some pizza, courtesy of the gas station, one of the towns limited places to eat, and then ate it at some benches across from the museum in the sound garden. We also had some fun messing around with the musical instruments that were built into the ground. The afternoon was spent digging some more and then we finally left the site for the day at 5:30. We ate burgers, salad, and s'mores, for dinner! Then played ping pong and another round of the board game "murder".