It's that time of the year!

the ice in the creek bed looks like an ancient glacier (stolen from @itsyourrock on instagram)

I don't know how many of you readers exist in the Midwest...but if you do, our collective pain is palpable.  This winter has been a rough one. I'm sure it's been hard for everyone...there's just something about being land-locked that makes my pain more important than your pain.

Saturday was nice, though.  It was roughly 50 degrees (t-shirt weather, yay!) and we decided to go on a fossil hunt.  We threw the dog in the back of the Honda and were off like rockets to my favorite fossil ditch.  We had a fairly successful venture: horn coral, petrified wood, brachiopods, some crinoid stems, and some Devonian coral (not sure what kind, anyone? anyone...bottom row second from the right).  

Not too shabby.

Just Another Trip to the Pawn Shop.

McKee's coins is the coolest pawn shop in the Mid West.  I'll usually try to hit it up every three months to check out their new wares.  The place is mostly filled with antlers, taxidermy, old hunting traps, books, Native American Artifacts, coins a plenty, fossils...McKee's Coins is not your normal pawn shop.  It seems to cater to the eccentrics as well as those interested in a good ol' coin auction.  We went there on Saturday to pick up some display boxes for my plethora of fossils (photos of that soon, so exciting) and I managed to haggle my way into a deal (photos of that to come as well) which was good for my ego and self esteem.  All in all, a good time.

A view of the shop from the back.  Notice all the eclectic clutter.

Yeah, that's beaver taxidermy and that's woodchuck taxidermy.  Behind?  A huge python skin (15 feet long!)

Just a cool shot of all of their front window display taxidermy.  The goose looks alive.

I've visited this shop for three, going on four years.  These fossils have never moved.  I'm gonna make a deal for these on my next visit.  I'll be the proud owner of a bucket full of Blastoiden.  I'm not sure what the next step will be.

Bear Skull!

Fossils in Iowa: Mahaska County.

The dry weather has hindered my adventures.  It's a sad thing, really.  When rain water doesn't flow through creek beds weeds quickly take over the crevices.  Poor Jane is left standing in sad, weedy mud puddles wondering what happened to all of her wonderful fossils.  I'm a tough cookie, though.  When I decide I'm going to find something I'll do it and I managed to find a few fossils on the Des Moines River this Saturday.  There's a few shell fossils and a pretty nice chunk of coral (i can't take credit for finding that one, my partner in crime did).

It's always neat to find something that is millions of years old.