Cokeville Wyoming

After U-Dig I was supposed to go dig up some fossil fish with Fossil Safari so it was decided to get closer that night. I was dubious. I drove far into cow country and mile after mile there wasn’t a house or a town to be seen, just cows, cows, and more cows. I was hypothesizing I’d be sleeping aside the bovines for the night, especially after a “Rest stop” I passed turned out only to be an outhouse (with no toilet paper or soap) and a picnic table surrounded by cow pastures. I was quickly learning just how much this country loves beef. There are cows EVERYWHERE all the time. Finally I reached Cokeville, and saw a Pilot’s truck stop. The parking lot was empty as could be. Aside from the music blaring and the bright lights the place seemed to be deserted but then again I suppose a town with only five hundred people would always deserted.

In the morning when I went to use the restrooms one of the attendants gave me a fierce scowl, for what reason I’ll never know. Perhaps it had something to do with the half and hour or better she spent staring at the Jeep with her co-worker from their steps. I slinked off. Coming out of the Pilot’s was no better. A cop immediately came from nowhere and pulled me over. I was absolutely confused as to why. The cop came over and in a very rushed and aggravated voice he asked for the license and registration. Looking at the license he then asked what I was doing in town and where I was going, and why. I got the feeling I was being watched and the locals around here are less than welcoming to interlopers coming through. I wondered what could cause such abrasive behavior and possible paranoia. Was it the fact I was wandering through parts of the country notorious for fundamental Mormonism? Who knows. I wasn’t even given enough time to take out the registration before the cop threw the license back, made up some cock and bull story about how you’re not supposed to “shoot out onto the highway” (I’m pretty sure us normal people would call that merging) and told me to keep going. It was weird. The day wasn’t going to get much better…

I drove and drove and drove out into the middle of nowhere to find this damn quarry. As it turns out the address programmed into the GPS was on the contact information page of the quarry because the actual quarry address was not listed anywhere. This isn’t normally a bad idea except when the address is actually the people who work the quarry’s home… two hours away…. 200 miles off course… and after passing another site I really did want to visit (Fossil Butte National Monument.) One tank of gas and half a day down….

***UPDATE: Further research has let me know that Cokeville Wyoming may have had reason to be so unwelcoming. In 1986 it was the sight of the Cokeville Wyoming Elementary School Hostage Situation and Bombing. Sooo…. strangers aren’t particularly loved there…

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July 26, 2011 0

Cody Wyoming

I was told by someone that I had to go through Cody after exiting Yellowstone, in fact I think two or three different people mentioned this but none of them let me know what Cody was. It wasn’t until I was at the ice cream parlor in Yellowstone, staring at the old advertisement for Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West Show, that I realized Cody was probably one of those tacky Wild West tourist traps. I was right. Statues of old Western heros, white buffalo, and various other animals lined the streets. Everything was made to look like an old saloon. There were hotels and inns everywhere as well as huge clothing stores loaded with the most garish of clothing articles, enormous glittering purses, baby pink cowgirl hats, ten pound shiny belt buckles, rattlesnake boots, and cowboy hats of every kind imaginable. Of course the best part of the town was the dubious and probably offensive depictions of “Indians” which were everywhere. The second best part of the town was the Dug Up Gun Museum. I didn’t go in but I expect these are just firearms people found buried in their back yards. How weird and freaky is that?

I couldn’t resist stopping to pick up a post card for my cousin who happens to be named Cody. I hope he gets a laugh out of it but I really don’t know.

I stopped at a McDonald’s there for quite awhile and I got to watch the local teenagers while pretending to be focused on other things. There were a couple chicks there, maybe 15 or so in age, with make-up covered faces and tight clothing. One of them was trying to pick up a boy, one in a group of four, all dressed up to the hilt looking like they’d just walked off a set for a 1940’s Western, hats, boots, flannel shirts, and belt buckles included. When all four came over to sit down she was still smiling and flirty. Eventually her chick friend grew annoyed, not wanting to have a part in this, and left. The remaining chicka soon found her devious plans were to backfire. Somehow the topic of conversation wound around to some friend of theirs, not present, who had recently been “almost caught fucking a girl real good at the bus station. Cop came rollin’ by and he just had enough time to pull up his pants!” This story went around getting more outrageous, the girl’s smile now turning to an intensely uncomfortable grimace. Fifteen minutes later when the gaggle got up from the table she took tail and headed for the hills. ‘Course now I had lost my entertainment. Damn.

If you are enjoying Catching Marbles please consider adding a dollar or two to my limited gas money fund so I can continue going on adventures and sharing them with you! Thank you!

June 26, 2011 0

Grand Teton National Park – Wyoming

From the fossil fish dig I went straight to Grand Teton National Park. It was exceptionally cloudy and I stopped to take some rather mystical looking photos of the snow-topped mountains. I also walked a little ways around Jenny Lake which, for a lake, was beautiful. The water was crystal clear and the mountains overlooking it gave it a wonderful vibe. I dipped my hands in the water, which was so soft and cool. It was starting to rain and I needed to get to our campground before it closed. I’d already made reservations at Madison in Yellowstone.

If you are enjoying Catching Marbles please consider adding a dollar or two to my limited gas money fund so I can continue going on adventures and sharing them with you! Thank you!

June 24, 2011 0

Fossil Fish Dig – Kemmerer Wyoming

On Thursday morning I was back at Ulrich’s Fossil Gallery to go out fossil fishing. I were guaranteed 6-8 full fish specimens.

I went out with a teenage boy, Dylan, whose summer job it was to work the quarry, and a friendly middle aged couple named Lynn and Bill. I drove in a beat up old truck up a dirt road that led straight to the center of the mountain. Let me tell you, the ride was steep! At one point we passed two or three antelope.

“What pretty animals.” Bill exclaimed, before asking if it was legal to hunt them. It was. Shame, they were very pretty. I refrained from asking what the little rodents dashing across the road were. I didn’t really feel like looking like an idiot. That’d be like someone coming up to me in NH and asking what the squirrels were.

Anyway! I came to the quarry, which was a small section where rocks could be seen piled up like sheets. I were given a hammer and chisel and given a quick demonstration before being given the opportunity to pick one of three spots. I chose the one I could climb on. It was the first rock I found the first fish, three actually, although two were “exploded” and could no longer really be identified as fish. Apparently not only full skeletons are preserved in the fossilization process, but sometimes piles of decomposed goo are as well. Decomposed goo or not I was proud of my first find, and the little skeletal fishy was perfect in my eyes. Besides, the exploded fish didn’t actually count as normal people don’t like to keep them…

It took a while but eventually I found a partial big fossil, a mioplosus, a somewhat rare find here.

After this the rock got real fragile. Apparently it had gotten wet at some point and some of the layers were flecking off like paper, revealing fossils that in no way could actually be preserved. This was frustrating, I dug through all of that and back down to the hard layers. Apparently the “18 inch layer” where all the commercial digging was done had the consistency of concrete. That’s where the professionals dug with heavy machinery and of course I wouldn’t be chipping away at that layer. I found the allotted amount of fish I was promised, in three different species, knightia, mioplosus, and diplomystus. All except the mio were a few inches in length and preserved wonderfully. I was very happy with the finds. Over on the other side of the quarry another group had found three monster fish, complete too. One had to be extracted with a saw. All this and I felt bad for the couple who was in our group who found substandard fossils, all tiny, many very fragile, and not a hell of a lot of them. They were such a sweet couple too!

Coming back from the dig was an adventure all its own. Imagine being in a beat up old truck going down such a steep hill that looking out of the back of it you couldn’t see the road behind you, just fresh mountain air. Now imagine going down that same hill knowing that the road was only vaguely the width of the vehicle you’re in and any mistake would result in you toppling off the side and rolling down the mountain. Nerve racking! I made it though, as Dylan told us why his truck’s roof was slashed to bits. “Some of the other guys up here sometimes get bored and test their new blades on the ceiling…”

I was super pleased with my finds. I wasn’t really expecting much. The trilobite dig was a lot of fun (and a completely different experience, being in different rock) but this had its own charm. I even found myself rather liking the little fish that once swam around here, eons before my existence. I was told of a dinosaur dig in Montana but the funds were running thin. Perhaps I’ll come back for that someday. Still, the fish quarry people insist that customers on the “fossil tour” (trilobite, fish, and dinosaur digs) said their fish digging was the best of the three. We’ll see!

If you are enjoying Catching Marbles please consider adding a dollar or two to my limited gas money fund so I can continue going on adventures and sharing them with you! Thank you!

June 22, 2011 0

Ulrich’s Fossil Gallery, Kemmerer Wyoming

After Fossil Butte I passed this sign that said, “Fossil Fish Gallery” and of course had to stop. It was someone’s house, granted it was a large one. Out front there was a huge set of dinosaur footprints and some petrified wood. This promised to be interesting.

Going in there was a huge slab on the wall with dozens of fish on it. I climbed the stairs into the shop and saw a teenage girl tending counter. There were fish everywhere, big ones, little ones, delicate ones, all beautifully displayed. There was an absolutely enormous gar, its scales still visible. Not long after entering another woman appeared and started talking with us. She had the brash fast-talking ways of a Yankee, but claimed to be homegrown here in Kemmerer. She told us that she grew up near here on a ranch and that she never knew what treasures she was sitting on top of, stating as children she would lob the fossils like Frisbees at each other’s heads. She claimed many thousands of dollars of fossils got ruined in this fashion. Now she made a living off them, saying her husband was part and partial to setting up Butte National Monument Park itself, and that is why they were allowed to keep the massive gar. (State legislations require all “rare” fossils to be surrendered to scientific institutions.) She was a funny woman, showing us around, and showing us the difference between the fossils in the “18 inch layer” and the surrounding layers. Then she told us she took people up to the quarry seven days a week, from 9am to noon to dig, for a fee slightly higher than that of Fossil Safari. She had nothing good to say about Fossil Safari. She brought us to her basement where she had a number of fossils dug up at fossil safari. Apparently a couple people had come in the day before with these uncut, mediocre fossils they had dug up at Fossil Safari. She said she wasn’t even sure if they provided tools for these people but they didn’t provide any means of cutting them down to size. The fish dug up here were in better condition, they were at the dead center of the ancient lake, and preserved by petroleum seepage. They did not look like the silhouettes of fish that were sitting sad and neglected in this basement, donated for the young children to find in the rubble pile out back.

Penny, the woman answering all the questions, turned to me and inquired if I was always this quiet. Pretty much. This should be taken as a compliment, I found the conversation hat fascinating. Before I knew it I was booking an appointment with “the boys” to go to their quarry. It was slightly more expensive but way more personal, with only four people going up with each guide. And to add to the charm I was put in a group without children as, “There must be a reason you don’t have children!” What a funny comment.

I had to wait two days for the appointment and after the dig I bought a little “grade A” kit from them. It contains a fish fossil so deeply embedded in a piece of rock from the 18 inch layer that it has to be neatly and carefully chiseled and scratched out to see it. This sort of tedious work has always relaxed me. I very much wanted to try it.

June 21, 2011 0