More Megalodon Hunting

Ever since my first time in the new pit, I knew I was destined to dig within its filthy contours until the bitter end. Today I had an easy time convincing all my kids and even one of their friends that we needed to be there. A new pit is a big deal in my house. It means my wife gets to have a quiet evening at home several times a week. Yah, its tough to talk her into it but somehow I manage to pull it off. We got out there and saw that two backhoes were digging on the hole during the day, so there was freshly exposed layer all over the place. What a dream. We could dig wherever we wanted. Surprisingly, though, the first hour of the hunt was uneventful. We found a few broken teeth, but definitely not enough to justify the swarms of gnats simultaneously attacking eyes, arms, neck, ears, nose, AND lips. And since I was wearing gloves, I couldn't get them off me. Bug spray was useless against them! Yet, if I removed the gloves to wipe them off my face, my girly programmer hands will become targets themselves. I can't dig without gloves, and I like my skin in non bloody blister mode. I could literally see the gnats crawling on my eyelashes. I could hear them buzzing in my ears. They were crawling up my nose. All I could do was dig harder to make myself sweat to drown the flying teeth. Then, their carcasses would serve as a sort of shield against subsequent onslaughts. I was in misery. The kids were fine, because by this time they had all stopped hunting to play on the giant hills of dirt. They were sliding down, climbing them like mountains, etc. They were already protected from the bugs with a dirt barrier. I was the only fool for them to attack! As I dug in one corner of a new exposure, I exposed a big tip. I carefully removed some overburden so I could use a screwdriver. Halfway through the excavation, I gingerly wiggled the tip to see if the tooth was whole. It didn't budge. I continued to remove the dirt and rocks bit by bit until I had the whole back of the tooth uncovered. I could see incredible lightning marks on the back and all the enamel was there. No enamel peel, no flaking of the root. Generally, teeth I find face down are complete on the front, so I was hopeful. I snapped a photo and called over the kids. They were thrilled. This is why we go 2thin. All that was left was to pick it up. I stuck my shovel in a few inches below the tooth and pulled out a big chunk. In a few more minutes, I had most of the dirt removed. I couldn't see the marbling, but I knew all the enamel was there. SCORE! The rest of the day, the kids hammered on the layer all around where I found the obvious tooth of the day. I explored some more area opened that day and found all the pieces of another bug tooth. The machine broke it - lousy machine. There were huge chunks of dirt and rocks all over the place, but they were hard as a rock. As if I were Thor hefting his hammer, I raised my shovel over my head and cleaved a large layer chunk in twain, revealing a beautifully marbled angustidens. Another score! What a day. Everyone else ended up finding a few teeth, too, including a few pretty decent makos and angustidens. Night fell and we herded into my truck to leave the best spot and its buzzing, flying menaces. Will we be back? Probably tomorrow.