Almost dinosaurs

Taking a break from cousin Jonah's graduation celebration this weekend, Mathias and I took a road trip to Nebraska. More specifically, pretty much in the middle of nowhere (which is ironic because most of Nebraska is in the middle of nowhere) we went to Ashfall fossil bed. 

It seems 12 million years ago Nebraska was a tropical rain forest. There were camels and rhinos. A really, really large volcano 1,000 miles away erupted and dropped six feet of ash on top of the region now called, fittingly, Ashfall. Many animals died very quickly and were discovered, mostly intact, in the 1970s. And the dig was on! 

I enjoyed touring the excavation sites. Mathias came for the hands-on experience. They have a spot where kids get do dig for, not quite real, fossil remains. Together we dug out a prehistoric horse and a rhino. Mathias was disappointed we didn't get to take the bones home to show Johan. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashfall_Fossil_Beds