We dilly dallied on the way, stopping at Tommy's Burger in Provo for a hot dog and a chicken sandwich. If you've never been to Tommy's you've never had lunch, and you're actually breaking a Utah Valley ordinance if you drive past Provo without stopping at Tommy's. But go soon--Provo City has been talking about condemning the block and turning it into a parking lot for a new strip mall, because everyone knows nothing adds personality and defines a city like a strip mall. We need to get rid of all the quirky old mom-and-pop shops, anyway.
Guess I digressed. But Kevin and I ate lunch at Tommy's almost every single day one year when we worked at Novell. It's like home.
Anyway, when Randy and I realized we still had 20 miles of dirt road to go before the quarry and it was about 3:30 p.m., and we remembered the website had said the trilobite farm would shut down at 4 p.m. if no one was there, we decided to hurry.
We got there in time, gave Gene our $23.30, and he gave us each a five-gallon bucket and Randy a rock hammer (I already had one, and a pry bar). By the way, the road was graded and well graveled and easily traversed by any car until about the last 200 yards, when it dips down a steep, bumpy hill, passes two porta-potties, and climbs back up a steep hill.
We walked down to the side of the excavated hill (for part of your hunting fee, they dig out the rock with a big back hoe), where another couple was whacking at rocks. And we started whacking at rocks. The rocks are limestone shale, so they split apart pretty easily, and they're reasonably easy to pull out of the mountain or the ground. A lot of loose rocks are also lying around to whack on.
This is what an old miner looks like hunting trilobites.
This is what a real pro looks like. (This isn't a pro, but this is what one would look like.)
This is what a little trilobite looks like in its shale bed.
Some are buried in the rock, and they won't come out in one piece.
Some will come out of the rock more or less intact (this one seems to be less; I think this thorax is missing its cranidium and pygidium, like I know what those are).
These trilobites are said to be about 550 million years old (think of it this way: if we paid $20,000 a year on our national debt it would be paid off in 550 million years).
Trilobites were the first invertebrates on the earth--they have an exoskeleton like a crab. Also like crabs, they crawled around and got their food on the bottom of oceans.
The largest trilobites in this quarry are about two inches. We found several large ones, but I didn't find any big ones that were in one piece, although Gene, the guy running the place dug out three or four while we were there.
I also found these fossils but don't know what they are. They look like worms or plants. Gene didn't know what they were, either, and said to ask a paleontologist. They seem to be in pairs and maybe in a V shape (thus a plant?). If you know what these are, please clue me in. On the right are the objects, and on the left are their impressions on the opposing slab of shale.
This adventure was well worth $23.30. Kids six and under are free, and youth seven to 16 are about $13, if you're a Utah resident.
If you're near Delta in the early spring, you can also watch the ranchers burn the weeds along their fence lines.
And if you're in Elberta anytime, you can see the house we built for a family when I worked for Utah County almost 30 years ago. If you look closely, I think there's a ghost in the window on the right (click on the picture to enlarge it).
1 comment:
Do I get a ticket for only eating there about 3 times in the 3 years we were in Happy Valley? Oh, and I still have a bag of topaz from our couple of adventures to Topaz Mtn.
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