I knew it would happen eventually

Today when I woke up, it took me 30 minutes to decide where to go. Tha duDe was coming over and just he and I were going today because we had to talk about some stuff. We had some decent rain earlier this week, but with the number of quality fossil hunters constantly on the rise, most of the fossils in the developments will be gone by now. Plus, digging has ceased in the places we've been going. I had to think of a place that few people know about in order to have a chance at a good day. Tha duDe doesn't care where we go as long as we find good stuff (speaking of good stuff and tha duDe, he just brought over the stuff he found on the 17th at the killer Oligocene spot. Click here. You won't be disappointed!) Anyway, I decided to hit the sand pits. No one really knows about it, so we might find a decent tooth just lying out. The first hour was pretty disappointing - the best thing either of us found was a big sand tiger shark tooth - not a bad find, but we were hungry for a big score! I had just about thrown in the towel when we reached the back of the pit. I was making a bee line for the piles of Chandler Bridge and marl when tha duDe says "look at all those rocks in that sand". We both headed toward the last hope of finding anything. I hit the side near the trench full of water, and he went to the opposite side near the hills. I walked just a few feet before I noticed that the "rocks" weren't rocks at all. They were bones. Then I saw more poking from under the sand. I put them all in a plastic bag so they wouldn't be further damaged and did a little investigating. A little poking around under the sand revealed a plethora of bones in the gooey pastel green Chandler Bridge. It was time to trade the shovel for a knife. A short time later, I confirmed that it was a whale when I unearthed what appeared to be the snout section of the lower jaw. It was badly damaged as the last rainfall had caused sand to rush across it and cover it. A mere two inches to the east was the skull minus jaws. It had some erosion damage from the backhoe and subsequent erosion, too. The final large piece was a section of jaw that had 2 teeth intact that I could count. This piece was completely covered by the Chandler Bridge when I found it, however, so it was broken but relatively intact. There was only one problem - I didn't have anything I needed to jacket the pieces! There was no way I would take them out in chunks - that would be a prep nightmare!!! Tha duDe and I ran back to the truck and headed to the closest hardware store. Between there and the Dollar Store, we got everything we needed to jacket the skull. This time when we drove back, we parked 50 feet from where the skull was. I carefully trenched each piece and jacketed it with the flower stenciled rags I got from the dollar store. When it was done, I had at least 6 teeth from the animal that I saw. There are likely many more still in the jackets! I've found a skull before, but never this complete. Unfortunately, though, I missed the inaugural meeting of the Lowcountry Fossil Club, which I had planned on attending, if possible. I think, though, that due to my extremely cool alibi, I'll be off the hook :-)