I'm back(hehehe)

["GOBI 2010" <gobi2010@hotmail.com>]

Dear Paleofanatics,Paleontologists, Amatuers, Paleobotonists and 
everyone else here and on the face of the earth who I forgot to mentio n 
earlier,

I am back from my trip.
(Actually I got BACK Friday night, but guess what...I'm STILL BACK)
Okay here's some of the things I saw, in general order.
Badlands Nat'l Park, S.Dakota-
This place was COOL! I never thought rock could be so..PRETTY or 
COLORFUL! Horizontal streaks of blues, greens, Reds, browns, golds and 
cream racing across the dune-like mounds of smoothe rock. I think I'll 
return to the area sometime. 
WALL DRUG STORE-
Gee. This place was...um....BIG, and to think-my mom, grandma and I 
missed the back half of the store!(YEEPS!)...I really wanted to see the 
6 foot tall rabbit....Oh yeah, I got a bit of dinosaur eggshell 
there...like a chip about the size of my thumbnail. I wanted to get an 
Oreodont tooth there, but my mom said getting a tooth was stupid.
Mt.Rushmore-
Does anyone else think a buncha heads on a mountain is...BORING?(no 
disrespect meant)I think the neatest thing was the barbershop quartet 
thing they did there before they turned the lights on it at night-one 
group did the Lone Ranger Theme (Which is, by the way, a PITA to play on 
clarinet--I KNOW this from experience), and another neat thing was 
seeing the bats fly in the light around the 'heads, snitching up 
insects.
Crazy Horse Monument-
When I visited this place there is one thing that sticks in my 
mind-UNORGANIZED MAZE, that and the fact that the monument seems like it 
shall never be finnished. Currently they have Crazy Horse's face, a hole 
for his armpit through the rock, and a chalk outline of the horse's 
head. I found it quite dissapointing...BUT, I got a pin from there for 
my hat(I got one from Mr.Rushmore,too!).
Some Rock Shop near Mt. Rushmore-
Somewhere in the Black Hills where my fammily stayed while visiting Mt. 
Rushmore is a rock shop...I can't right offhand remember the name-of 
where we stayed or the rock shop!-but anyway...
The man who worked there was friendly, and I purchased an Oreodont bone 
and a Titanothere bone(A vert.??) and some 'Dinosaur Bone' bits about 2" 
x 1/2"
Black Hills Institute-
This place was cool. It wasn't that big of a place, but here was where I 
saw my first dino skeletons (even if they were *gasp* casts). I stood 
under Stan's ribs and beheld the T. rex and all it's fierceness, walked 
by an Edmontosaur being attacked by the remains of an ?Albertosaur?, 
took video of a Triceratops and an Acrocanthosaur skull on display, as 
well as looking at the remains of a ?Gallimimus? near a picture of a 
squished Tyrannosaurid skull (Sue?). There were So many things there, 
packed and crammed into the area with a skillfullness that made the 
area, amazingly, NOT claustrophobic. Unfortunately the only thing I 
disliked about the place was the dullness of the lady I met who worked 
there. :( I couldn't get more than a 'yes' or 'no' out of her when I 
tried to speak 2 her.
Mammoth Dig Site-
This place was another fairly small, yet very neat place. They have a 
large mammoth skeleton in the front that was quite neat, and left me 
wondering....
Is a Columbian Mammoth larger than a Tyrannosaurus? Who would win if 
they got into a fight? If it was a hotspring, why didn't the Mammoths 
simply BOIL to Death like people do if they fall into one at 
Yellowstone? 
Okay, that got a LITTLE off track, but anyway....I took a tour of the 
place and saw the 'site. Amazing how there could be so many dead 
mammoths in one place.
Tate Museum, Casper Collage-
I LOVE THIS PLACE!!
:) I got to meet Alison Hunter (who I've been exchanging e-mail with for 
months) and she was nice and showed me to her friends there, and had 
them give me a tour of everything-Musueum, Prep. Lab, and even where 
they make casts! Everyone was so kind and friendly there that it amazed 
my mother and grandmother. I learned lots of neat things here while 
'pestering' the people who worked at the musem, about how they prepared 
the bones, what bones they were working on and how to make casts....it 
was the neatest 2 hours of my trip. I didn't see Dr. Bob Bakker 
there-turns out he was coming to the 'Tate about 4 days from the day I 
was there! I got 2 allosaur tooth casts and one middle foreclaw from an 
allosaur cast. 
Yellowstone-
I think I died of boredom here. I never want to see another hot spring 
or gyser again. The place was WAY too crowded for me, and the animals,I 
think, and everyone was rushing around. Contrary to popular belief it 
was not a relaxed atmosphere. I saw a guy shouting at a bison to  get it 
to move it's head so he could take a picture of it from about 3 feet 
away. Poor Bison. :( I also saw some elk there-lots of elk, in fact, but 
the elk had the sense to stay FAR FAR away from the roads, where they 
*hopefully* couldn't be pestered, anoyed or frightened by stupid people. 
We got a cabin for our stay here, but whenever the other people in one 
of the other cabins used a shower, we lost our hot water-my mom was SO 
MAD-she thuroughly verbally thrashed the people who worked in 
yellowstone for it.
Grand Tetons-
WHEEE! This place was WAY better than Yellowstone. I whent to a TON of 
RLA's )ranger-led activities), saw a Bald Eagle land in a tree not far 
from where I was (it was a wild eagle), learned about Pikas, River 
echosystems, Animal Symbolisum and glaciers. The atmosphere was laid 
back and all the rangers were friendly and so happy with their jobs. I 
think I learned a lot in this place. Oh yeah, I saw some trumpeter swans 
here-they have a nesting pair there. It was fun watching them even if 
they eventually got scared away by my the restof the loud, obnoxious 
tour group (well, we didn't have to worry about bears after that).
Dinosaur National Monument-
Expecting something somehow grand, I approached this place with high 
hopes, only to find that most of it was dull, and unorganized. The slab 
of stone protected by the building is neat, and so are the displays, I 
guess...but nothing about the area really perked my interest except for 
the shuttle ride back to the car where I learned that they're digging 
this one new dinosaur up on a certain hillside. While in the main 
building, I asked how they made the miniature casts of the big allosaur 
skull, but  my reply was meaningless muttering about some type of Chart, 
so I'm STILL left wondering 'how they do that'. My mom got me a HUGE 
dinosaur book-my biggest dinosaur book by far--it's called _The 
Dinosauria_ and it's edited by 3 people who I'm two lazy to put their 
names down here and is 700+ pages. I haven't finnished reading it yet, 
but someday I'll settle down and use it more for reading then drawing 
pictures from the skeletons.
UNIVERSITY OF WYOMING-
My mom got PO'd at the lady in the Information building who had no 
information....but we eventually got to the museum there, where I 
accidently bumped into the Geology Dept.'s public relations Guy, who led 
us to the museum, and later gave me a Video that told why I should go 
the the U of Wy. and a poster, as well as the geology grad. student's 
publication. My mom also bought me a shirt there. The people at the 
museum were nice, like at the Tate, if less Hyper about their work. It 
was really neat.
and finnaly the last stop on the trip-
MALL OF AMERICA-
WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
This was the biggest mall I've ever seen. It's huge. But it's just like 
any other mall, really, just with more stores, and more sore feet when 
you get done walking it. I ate at the Rainforest Cafe'and at Cafe 
Odessey's Serengeti Room-they were neat places, both set up to look like 
their namesake's habbitat, and the Serengeti Room is cool-they have a 
hidden screen in a wall that shows an image of a waterhole and various 
animals going to the waterhole thoughout the 'day' and night. For a 
while, everyone in the room was watching it.


And then I whent home.
It's amazing how...WIERD trees and grass looks now.
Well, that's just my opinion on what I saw, did and thought of my trip. 
It's good to be back, and in a chair instead of a car. :)



Jessica Wagar
Amateur Paleontologist
Michigan,USA
http://server1.hypermart.net/gobi2010/index.htm

Good friends are like good books;
Hard to find and worth keeping-JNW'98


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