Banana Hanna Fo Fanna

Tropical Storm Hanna was bearing down on South Carolina as I sat with my family at Taco Bell in awe of how hard it was raining. We couldn't see my wife's car parked just across the sidewalk. The streets were flooding everywhere. Then the band of showers passed and the sun peeked through the swiftly moving, low clouds. And the rain had been falling off and on like that all day long!  The weezling and I drooled in anticipation of finding large serrated objects in the morning after Dutch Creek had time to clear out.

We woke up early and hit Dutch creek. When we parked, we saw that the water level had reach halfway up the bank. Since its a small creek, that's incredible. No new rock beds had been uncovered, but sand had moved everywhere. The weezling knows where the best teeth usually wash out and he hit all of those with enthusiasm. He stuffed teeth into his pockets by the handfull. He didn't even know he found a really nice posterior angustidens until after he got home and looked at his finds. I found a beautiful angustidens laying partially exposed in an area of rapids in the creek. A nice bonus - we still had a decent breeze this morning so the mosquitos weren't bad!

Next, we ate a celebratory lunch at Moes. As I ate my burrito, the manager came to our table and gave me a hat. He said that I ate there enough to deserve it. Sweet!

Our next stop was the Big Ditch, on the other side of Summerville. We hadn't hunted there in a really long time, but anytime after a downpour, that ditch is a possibility for something nice. We arrived and saw two people walking out of the ditch. Then as we climbed in, we saw two more. They had just arrived, but the man was quick to tell me how he had found a 4 inch flawless angustidens right where we were standing as we spoke. "Today??" I asked? "No" he replied. He had dug it out 10 years ago and sold it.  Anyway, we soon parted from those two as we walked down the ditch. We saw a snake, but not much else. The water was still pretty cloudy. It usually takes this ditch a whole day to clear out enough to seee the bottom. After a brief moment trying to catch a snake, we continued to search for exposed fossils. I spied a small blade sticking out of the Ashley formation just above the water line. I bent down and saw its intact tip. I carefully, but excitedly dug it out with my keys. I was elated to reveal a complete tooth - just as sweet (only smaller) than the angustidens I found earlier in the day. A little further down the ditch, we saw two more people who had just arrived. Then a few minutes later, a group of 4 kids were sifting in the creek. We turned at the Y in the ditch and started finding fresh dig marks in the banks. We had just climbed out of the ditch when we saw two other people climbing into the ditch. Finally we arrived back at the truck. I had one tooth, and the weezling had 2 small ones and a shark vertebra. He asked me why we don't hunt the Big Ditch much anymore. Then I asked him how many other hunters we saw while there. Then I asked him how many people he saw at Dutch Creek and he was quickly able to answer for himself when he considered how many teeth he found at both places!