July 20, 2006

OK, I'm back. I apologize for the lengthy interim, but I've a variety of excuses. Number one, I've been anxiously running about getting my gear together - most significantly a new field vehicle for the Museum - and have not had the time to think much about this blog. Number two, I'm no longer a teen (or pre-teen, for that matter) and have been learning how to "operate" a blog, and number three - for the last three days, I've been driving across country to get to Montana. Tonight I'm in Sheridan, Wyoming and will cross the Bighorn Mountains tomorrow, arriving at our excavation site in early afternoon.

Mason left a few days before me with some volunteer staff from our prep lab and should be on-site already. I have to assume that all is well and we can get right to work preparing for the arrival of our field school participants this weekend. In actual fact, my hope is that Mason and the gang has everything prepared already and that I need merely breeze into camp and provide my seal of approval. I've every confidence in them so, all things considered (like the 100 degree temperates dominating the Bighorn Basin this week), we should be good to go.

I like driving across country (especially in CMC's new truck with AC, automatic transmission, 4WD and grill guard-mounted power winch!) as the landscape evolves (I love that word!) from largely flat cratonic land of eastern deciduous forest and agricultural fields to rolling prairie and then to the continental basement uplifts of the Rockies and the high desert intermontane basins filled with fossiliferous sediment. Even so, the long hours of the drive do wear, and I'm ready to hit the field.

I'll be off-line again for a few days while camping with my crew, but when the Field School begins, and I move up to the Yellowstone Bighorn Research Association (YBRA - more about that later!) camp at Red Lodge, I'll let you know how we're getting on. Cheers 'til then!